


Powerless

by doctorbuffypotterlock79



Series: We Can Be Heroes [1]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Extremely Excessive Fire and Ice Imagery Who tf Do I think I am, F/F, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied abuse, Injury, Lesbian AU, Medical Procedures, PTSD, Panic Attack, Secret Mission With Probably Dozens of Plot Holes But Oh Well, Slow Burn, Therapy, Very Dubious Superhero Science, Very Fake Superhero Laws, Violence, drug references, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-05-15 08:43:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19292242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorbuffypotterlock79/pseuds/doctorbuffypotterlock79
Summary: Vanessa is a hero, Brooke is a villain, and things are about to get very complicated. AKA a lesbian superhero AU that literally no one asked for





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a prologue with the backstory/preview of what’s to come. I just want to see what the reception is and whether people would be interested in reading more, so I would really appreciate any thoughts or feedback. Thank you!

Vanessa never wanted to be a hero. 

She’d had a perfectly normal life working a makeup counter. She’d had friends and girlfriends and sex galore. The explosion had taken that from her. 

Some greedy corporation’s experiments got out of control. The lab had exploded almost a year ago, taking out Vanessa’s entire apartment building and her friends and family that had been inside.

Well, almost the entire apartment building. 

Somehow, Vanessa had survived, waking up buried under a mountain of rubble without a mark on her. No one even knew she was alive in there, but she was. And she _felt_ alive. More alive than she ever had. There was strength pulsing through her body, and flames dancing across her fingertips. 

She ran from the scene, flames still shooting out of her hands with no control. She was on her own for three days when Silkworm found her. Silkworm had noticed Vanessa and her powers. Silkworm had powers too, and used her powers for good. To save people. And she wanted Vanessa to do the very same thing. 

Silkworm taught Vanessa how to control her fire. Taught her how to channel her strength and use it to help others. Silkworm saved her. Gave her safety, and an almost-friendship with another recruit, Almighty A’Keria. She had no other life, no other friends to return to. Joining their cause and helping others was noble, and the right thing to do, sure, but really, it was the _only_ thing to do. The only thing that gave her a shot at feeling like she had a family again. 

Vanessa was gone. Valiant Vanjie stood in her place, fighting to make the city safer and protect those in need. 

It wasn’t bad, the whole saving people thing. She liked her powers, liked the freedom of them, liked the glow of the flames that never burned her. 

But she missed her old life. Missed her friends, her family, her home. 

She was a hero, and she liked it. But sometimes she thought she would give it all up to be normal again. 

But that didn’t matter. She saved the world, because her world was gone.   
***

Frost never wanted to be a villain. 

She’d had a perfectly normal life with a professional ballet company. Not that she remembered much of it anymore- just occasional flashes in her nightmares. 

She did remember the crash. Her plane had gotten caught in a freak ice storm and the world had gone black. 

The next thing she remembered was waking up in a lab, scientists surrounding her and a jumble of tubes stuck in her arms, pumping unknown liquids into her. She didn’t know what they had done to her, only that she was alive, and that ice kept crystallizing all over her body without her control. 

They showed her how to control her power. They saved her. They told her that the entire company had perished on the plane, but that she had been saved. She was given an injection of a bright blue liquid each morning. They said it was her medicine, to make her feel better. If she was bad, if she had nightmares and started remembering things, she got more. One time she asked what her old name had been and they gave her a shot of different liquid, clear this time, and put an IV in her hand, the blue serum dripping into her for an entire day while she lay in bed unable to move. 

Her name didn’t matter anymore. They called her Frost, and it became her name. Over time, she forgot she had another name at all. 

The lab had given her her life, and now she dedicated her life to them. They trained her to control her powers, and to be strong, and to fulfill their needs. She did what they asked, and they never asked for anything she couldn't give. They let her have her own apartment, gave her anything she could possibly want. Eventually, once they perfected the blue serum, they let her come once a week for her injection, instead of every day. (Only more than that if she was bad, if she _remembered_ ). At night, they set her out to protect them, taking out spies and vigilantes and so-called heroes, anyone trying to stop the lab’s noble work. People called her a villain, and she let them. She knew she wasn’t. The lab had saved her, and they did research to save more people. She had to stop anyone trying to harm them.

Frost can’t remember her old life, and even if she could, there was nothing to go back to. She told herself that she was happy with her new life. But in her nightmares, the ones she didn’t tell the lab about, she thought she might have been happier before.

But that didn’t matter. She destroyed the world, because her world was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frost and Vanjie face off, giving Vanjie lots of questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read Part 1 and left feedback! The story officially gets going in this chapter, and I hope you enjoy! Thank you for reading, and I would appreciate any feedback!

Vanessa settles onto her couch with a bowl of chips so large it almost takes her super-strength to hold it. 

_Please let things be quiet tonight. Please let things be quiet tonight._ She repeats her mantra as Netflix queues up. She needs a night off, her entire body aching from last night’s drug-ring takedown. Unfortunately, super-healing didn’t come with the whole firebug package. 

Netflix just flashes onto the homescreen when her bracelet beeps. Silk insisted they were better than phones, and untraceable to boot. “For fuck’s sake!” Vanessa growls. “Can’t these people keep it together for one night?!” 

She reluctantly receives the call. If only she could harness that untraceability. Sometimes she wishes she could just disappear and never be found. 

“We got trouble, Vanjie,” Silk’s voice booms. 

_Vanjie now_ , she tells herself, flicking off the TV and almost shedding a tear as she puts her chips down. _No more Vanessa tonight._

“Of course we do. And I just wanted to eat some damn chips,” she replies. She shoves the communication device in her ear and tugs on her crimson red bodysuit, giant _V_ across the chest. 

“Chips gon’ have to wait. It’s that Frost bitch. She’s at the science lab on 29th. You might want to hurry.”

“On it.” Vanjie ends the call, steps into her knee-high black boots, and fixes the black mask over her face, not that her identity is even worth hiding. She didn’t have anyone left that she cared about, that she needed to protect her identity for. And it’s not like her identity mattered. She could announce her full name on the news and no one would care. No one even knew she had survived the fire. Vanessa didn’t matter. Vanjie did. It was Vanjie people called for when they needed help, when they wanted someone to save them. Vanjie who they trusted to keep them safe and wipe out the bad guys. 

Vanessa was nothing. Vanjie was the hero.

She’s on her motorcycle and down the street like a bat out of hell, reviewing what she knows about Frost, which, admittedly, isn’t much. Silk ticks off the points in her ear comm: ice powers, destroyed two science labs in the past month, sent three people to the hospital with hypothermia last week, associates unknown. Silk suspects she works for some secret organization, which could be helpful information, but the whole point of a secret organization is to be, well, secret, so they had no leads on that either. 

She slams on the brakes in front of the lab, her match-stick short legs getting caught on the seat as she dismounts and sending her sprawling on her face. At least no one’s around to see her look so un-like a badass.

The front doors are shattered into a pool of twinkling glass and shiny ice crystals. 

“She froze the security system,” Vanjie tells Silk. “No cops yet.”

Vanjie struts through the broken glass like it’s a runway, excitement coursing through her veins. No cops, and Frost is inside the building like a rat in a cage. Maybe this could be the night she finally nabs the bitch. 

She tears down the hall so fast she runs right into the ice bitch, who towers over Vanjie even in her heeled boots. A chill spreads across Vanjie’s chest as Frost’s coldness seeps through the blonde’s royal blue spandex suit that wraps around her like a second skin. _She’s got a nice body_ , Vanjie admits, admiring the green utility belt that cinches her waist. The obnoxiously bright neon green mask distracts from the soft green of her eyes, rising to a smooth, pale forehead and short blonde hair. 

“‘Sup, Snow Queen?” Vanjie teases. “Whatcha’ been up to? Stealing? Killing for fun?”

She is met with silence as Frost shoves her to the ground. Frost’s hand unclenches, and Vanjie glimpses blood staining her fingers and smeared across her palm. _What’s the bitch been up to?_

Vanjie picks herself back up, grinning broadly. “You know, I gave up chips for this. You could at least play along to make it more fun.” 

“Would you like me to call you Hephaestus?” Frost inquires, casually dodging Vanjie’s fist. 

“Who the hell is Hep-hepatitis?” Confused, Frost’s next hit lands square in her chest and takes her breath away. 

“The Greek god of fire and the forge.” 

“Alright, you know what, blondie, just go back to being quiet,” she jabbers, finally landing a punch that sends Frost to the ground and should bruise, Vanjie thinks proudly. 

Frost leaps to her feet, and there’s a certain grace to the way she moves. Even scraping herself off the floor, she’s almost...elegant, those long limbs flowing like they’re meant to do something else, something beautiful and exquisite. And then that long, graceful arm lobs an ice blast at Vanjie, and her legs are frozen to the floor while she curses and heats her hands to melt it. By the time she’s free, Frost is already out in the street. 

“Don’t run away from me, Elsa!” she screeches the lame insult, a product of her frequent hours binging Disney movies in an effort to feel normal again. 

She shoots a fireball at Frost, watching in awe as she twirls out of the way like a fucking ballerina, the awe turning to horror as the fire hits a streetlight instead, cleanly separating the heavy metal from its support base. The rest happens in slow motion. The severed light teeters and begins a descent to the sidewalk. There’s a kid standing in its path, because there’s _always_ a kid where they shouldn’t be-- Christ, didn’t people watch their kids anymore--frozen on the spot, and Vanjie runs but she knows she won’t make it. She sprints down the sidewalk, the light just feet away, closer, closer-- she won’t make it--but it doesn’t matter because--

Vanjie rubs her eyes, checks that this is reality. Frost stands in front of the kid, holding the streetlight in her bare hands like it’s made of paper. She drops it effortlessly on the sidewalk and stares at it, both hands pressed tightly to her head, and vanishes into the night. 

Vanjie doesn’t bother to chase after her, knowing she’ll be gone. She goes to check on the girl, who is young, maybe 15, with long black hair. 

“She-she saved me,” the kid whispers incredulously.

“Go home, kid,” Vanjie mutters. She wishes she could take her own advice, but there’s more work to be done. 

“Frost got away. I’m gonna search the lab before the cops get here,” she informs Silk over ear comm. 

“Don’t be too long,” Silk cautions. 

She searches the room Frost came out of, but nothing’s disturbed, except for a random mound of ice on the floor. She observes bits of bloody glass and a cork topper mixed in, but she has no idea what they used to be, what secrets they might hold. The cork, though. Maybe a vial? But why smash it on the floor and freeze it? Everything else seems intact, so Frost was either careful about what she did and took something unnoticeable, or she didn’t take anything.

But what about the ice on the floor? Why was her hand bleeding? Why come here for nothing? 

“Bank robbery on 36th,” Silk buzzes loudly in her ear. One of these days Vanjie’s gonna rip that thing out and smash it under her boots. 

She races to the bank and surrenders to the monotony, lets it become white noise. A punch here, a jab there, a kick here. She doesn’t think, doesn’t banter or taunt. She barely even registers the black-masked criminals as she kicks their asses. Every night the same. Every night stopping bad people, thinking she had done some good, only to go back out the next night and stop more bad people. 

She never thought the superhero gig would be so exhausting. 

It’s not until she’s home and in the shower that she allows herself to ask the real question. _Why did Frost save that kid?_ It didn’t make sense. Frost hurt people. She destroyed buildings, and stole from people, and she had tried to kill Vanjie dozens of times in the past few months. So why had she saved a random kid? 

The water drips down her bruised body, slowly washing Vanjie away and letting Vanessa come back. The grime and despair and misery cling to her stubbornly, lasting longer than the bruises do. 

It’s hard to get Vanessa back these days. 

She falls onto the couch, too tired to eat her chips, and calls Silk. 

“You got any info on that lab? Maybe it’ll tell us why Frost was there.” Vanessa privately decides not to mention the broken glass, the bloody hand, or Frost saving the kid. They feel connected but she just can’t see how, missing however many pieces she needs to put the puzzle together. She wants to keep it to herself for now. 

“Memstar Labs. Specializes in memory drugs. Been working on this new one named Memoriax. Supposed to restore memory loss. It’s really new. Like, no one even knows they’re working on it because it’s so new,” Silk rattles off. “But I got my ways of knowing,” she adds proudly. 

“Got it. Let me know if you hear anything,” Vanessa signs off and rubs a hand over her face as she sighs. 

So the science lab experimented with memory drugs. They had a brand new drug that no one could possibly know about, unless they have the kind of connections that Silk has. That Frost probably has. Could the drug have been the reason for Frost’s visit? Could she have taken something that would go unnoticed, like the drug formula? 

Vanessa groans in frustration, shuffling off to her bedroom. New bruises bloom over her petite body and the numbness of sleep is all she has to look forward to. She falls into a deep sleep that is dotted with images of Frost elegantly moving through the darkness, and wakes up inexplicably sad that the dream is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frost begins to struggle with her missions and her feelings for Vanessa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Frost/Brooke's side of things before shit really starts to go down. Thank you to everyone who has read this fic so far! I really appreciate all of your feedback! Also, an ENORMOUS thank you to the amazing @youre-a-kite for betaing this for me! Comments are always welcome! 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @buffywhovianpotterlock

Frost starts the morning with a pounding headache, a new bruise from that pyromaniac, and guilt weighing her down like an anchor. 

The night returns to her in waves, making her stomach twist anxiously. She flexes her hand, bandaged and stitched by a doctor at the lab last night, a physical reminder of how bad she’d been. Not only had she done a bad thing-- _two_ bad things, she corrects fearfully--but then she had lied to the doctor... 

She knows she should get out of bed and eat something, but the thought of putting anything in her stomach right now is enough to make her throw up. She curls her long limbs into a ball, buries herself under blankets, and turns on the TV for background noise, _The Golden Girls_ the soundtrack for her day of restlessly shifting in bed as she squirms with guilt. 

It’s a long day, and an even longer night. She’s gone against her routine, but she doesn’t have the energy to care. She’s done nothing but chew the skin around her nails all day, and it’s 2 am and she’s afraid to sleep, fighting with herself over staying awake to avoid a nightmare, avoid remembering, or sleeping and risking a nightmare so she can try to remember something, because she longs for a glimpse of her old life even though she _knows_ it’s bad to remember. 

She makes it to 4 am before her body fails and succumbs to sleep. She has the same nightmare again, the same flashes of the girl’s face, and it looks like the girl who had been near the streetlight but it’s not; they’re not the same person, they just have the same hair, long and black and shiny. She’s been seeing this girl’s face for weeks now. She looks young, maybe 20, and Frost thinks she recognizes her, but she doesn’t know why. _Were they friends in her old life?_ She wakes up drenched in a cold sweat, and it suddenly pops into her mind that the girl--the one in her dreams, not the one at the streetlight, they’re _not_ the same person-- was her friend and her name started with a _P_ , and she thinks the next letter is _L_ \--and then her alarm goes off, and it’s time for her appointment. 

Her visits at the lab follow a certain routine, and Frost likes routine. It helps her stop thinking. 

She sits on the exam table while her usual doctor goes through the weekly tests. He takes her temperature (she always ran cold, since the accident), her blood pressure, checks her breathing, and takes a blood sample while she grimaces and turns her head the other way. 

“Still afraid of a little needle?” the doctor teases with a grin. She didn’t know anyone’s name. Names weren’t important, they told her. 

“Yes,” she confirms quietly. 

“How are the nightmares?” he asks. It’s the same question every week, but this week it’s a knife in her heart. 

She hesitates. She could lie, say she hasn’t had any at all. But she already lied Friday night about how she hurt her hand, and she can’t risk it. She can’t be bad again. “I had a few this week,” she says finally. It’s not technically a lie, it’s just not the whole truth. 

“Just a few?” he questions. He lowers a hand to her knee and squeezes it, hard, as he peers into her eyes. _He knows_ , she thinks. _He knows it’s a lie._

“Just a few,” she echoes solidly.

Frost gulps as he reaches into his case and pulls out two giant syringes filled with blue liquid. “Double dose today. You’re running a little warm, and your blood pressure was higher than usual. Not to mention the nightmares.” He returns to the exam table. “This’ll fix you right up.”

She swallows back the bile rising in her throat as the cold alcohol wipe washes over her arm. She groans in pain as the needle goes in, her free hand gripping the edge of the table. The first one is barely out before he jams the second in, and she whimpers involuntarily. 

“All done,” he says, smoothing a Band-Aid over the injection. “You’ll feel better now.”

She nods, and he leads her to the office where another man-- a man she calls General, not Doctor--gives her instructions for the week. The General has buzzed gray hair and is even taller than she is. 

His voice is stern and gruff, each word a command. “I want to reiterate the details from Friday’s mission. You’re sure there were no samples of the Memoriax drug? It was just the formula you brought me?”

“Just the formula.” The lie tastes like poison. _Can he hear her heart racing?_ If he knew that not only had there been a sample, but that she had held it in her hand...

“Right,” he says, expression unreadable. “This week, you’ll be targeting Mighty Mermaid. Another hero,” he sneers, passing her the file with the instructions. “You don’t start until tomorrow. I know you got 2 injections today, and you might feel drowsy. Can’t have you out working like that.”

She nods and then she’s free to go prepare for the week. She is just through her apartment door when the sudden dizziness forces her to the ground, room spinning around her. Her stomach churns, and she scrambles for the bathroom, knees slamming on the tile as she surrenders her intestines to the toilet. She’s barely eaten the past few days, but anything that can possibly come up is coming up. She wouldn’t be surprised if her liver is next. 

Frost rises unsteadily to her feet, suddenly feeling like her limbs are made of lead. _Why was this happening?_ The only side effect she usually had was a floaty sense of numbness. _What if something was wrong with her?_ If her medicine isn’t working, she’ll get sick, and then she can’t help the lab, and that firebug with the warm caramel skin and the cackling hyena laugh will destroy them. 

She collapses into bed and falls into sleep’s embrace minutes later.

The next night, she goes to work. 

Frost is strong and fast, easily taking out that ridiculously-named Mermaid and the weak streams of water she sends at her. The nights speed by like forwarding through a movie. She stops Shuga Rush and her energy pulses one night and Cyst, who turns into a giant blob, the next. She steals a mind-enhancing drug formula and brings it to the lab, gives two vigilantes frostbite after they attack her, one of their knives slashing her leg and sending her to the lab for more stitches. 

She is obedient. She follows every order given to her. But it doesn’t work. She’s still bad, waking up screaming from nightmares every night. Trying to remember. _Wanting_ to remember. 

When her next appointment rolls around, she sits anxiously through the procedures, jaw clenched and shoulders tight, waiting for the blood pressure cuff or stethoscope to reveal her secrets. She picks at her nails as she waits for him to ask about the nightmares. 

But the question never comes. 

Instead, the door opens and the General steps inside, a silver briefcase in his hand. 

Her breath catches in her throat and tiny droplets of blood appear as she shreds the skin around her nails. _They know. They know she lied about her hand, they know about the kid, they know about the nightmares. She’s in so much trouble._

“We made some adjustments to your medicine,” he fires out like a cannon as he opens the briefcase and shows her three syringes of dark-blue liquid nestled inside. 

“D-Did I do something wrong? Was I bad?” the words twist fearfully in her mouth. 

“No, no, you weren’t bad. Your medicine just hasn’t been working right lately. Your test results have been abnormal the past month. High blood pressure, higher temperatures, blood a little irregular. And I hear you’re still having nightmares. We don’t want you to keep having those, because then that _would_ be bad. We tested your blood last week and saw your medicine wasn’t doing a good job anymore, so we improved it for you,” he explains.

The doctor cuts in. “Now, this is a much stronger formula. For today, you’ll get three shots, so we can make sure it fixes you and works effectively. Then we should get you back down to one. You’ll be very sleepy and you might feel sick, but it’s just temporary.” He speaks to her slowly, like she’s a child, and maybe she is, because even though her stomach clenches at the thought of three needles in her arm, all she really feels is pure relief that she’s not in trouble. 

She nods willingly, eyes on the floor as the alcohol chills her arm. The first needle goes in and she begins to float. The second one is inserted and her body droops like it’s made of jelly, the doctor’s hands guiding her to lay back on the table. The third one pierces her and she can’t keep her eyes open anymore. She’s unconscious before the needle is removed. 

She wakes up in a bed in one of the lab’s rooms, head foggy, with an IV in her hand--no, in both hands. Her blurry eyes follow the tubes and see that each one is connected to a bag of dark blue liquid. _More_ , she thinks. _Why are they giving me more?_ The thought has barely passed through her head before sleep takes her again. 

When she wakes up the second time, the IV’s are gone. She sleepily asks where they went and the doctor tells her she must have been dreaming, and she figures he’s probably right. He informs her that she’s been asleep for a whole day because the medicine was strong, but her vital signs are normal and she should feel better soon. And she does. She feels powerful, and light, the images that haunted her and weighed her down scrubbed clean. 

They assign her new targets, new missions, and she accepts eagerly. She does whatever is asked of her, grateful to the lab for making her feel better and allowing her to sleep. She sinks into the routine and lets it wash over her like a tide. Running into Vanjie on patrol becomes part of her routine, and while she won’t admit to liking Vanjie, or the way she feels like she’s burning after their encounters, she does like routine. Vanjie has an endless supply of ice-related taunts and nicknames, and any free moment Frost has is spent thinking of insults to lob back. And when she finds herself subconsciously seeking Vanjie out each night, she doesn’t acknowledge it. 

The nightmares and the faces have cleared out of her mind, and she goes days, then weeks, without having one. The skin around her nails heals and she doesn’t feel scared to go to sleep. She doesn’t remember anything from before the crash, and doesn’t try to. She keeps the lab safe, carrying out her missions faster than ever. Frost can almost completely erase the images of the girl she dreamt of and the similar girl she saved from the streetlight. 

Almost.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanjie settles into a routine with Frost and gets closer to the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this and left feedback, it really means a lot to me. Please note that things do get darker and more mature from this point on, so be cautious. This chapter also has a trigger warning for gun violence.  
> Thank you SO MUCH to @youre-a-kite for betaing this for me, your input is always great and so helpful. 
> 
> Also my ghost is posting this because I met Brooke Saturday and she straight up murdered me when she came out in her Catwoman suit. She was super nice and it was amazing. 
> 
> As always, feedback gives me life.

Two days after the Memstar Labs fight, Silk’s phone call pulls Vanessa out of a deep sleep. 

“Just got done with my contact at Memstar. They’re keeping it private, but their formula for that drug was stolen. They had one early sample and found the test tube broken in a puddle of water. You remember anything odd that night?” 

Vanessa hesitates once the information has made it through her sleep-fogged brain. Should she keep the lie going, try to figure this out for herself? Or confess it all? “No, nothing odd. The lab seemed fine, maybe Frost went back there after we fought?” Her mouth decides for her. 

“Maybe,” Silk agrees. She promises to call back with any updates, and Vanessa gratefully ends the call. 

So Frost took the formula, probably for whoever she works for. But why did they want it, and why didn’t she take the sample too? Vanessa sighs and slams her face back into her pillow. 

Three months of crime-fighting pass by in a blur, days running into each other like they did when she was a kid on summer vacation. Vanjie takes down drug rings, bank robbers, muggers, and B-list villains, but is yet to capture Frost. 

They run into each other almost every night, and it’s kind of nice having at least one thing she can count on, even if it always ends in her adding new bruises to her collection and using all the hot water in the city trying to warm up from the lingering chill. Frost has upped her insult game and plays along with the banter, and it’s better than the mindless thugs Vanjie takes down otherwise. Aside from the injuries, it’s almost _fun_. And on the rare nights when she doesn’t encounter Frost, she tells herself the disappointment she feels is just because she didn’t get to kick her ass. 

Frost has become a routine, so Vanjie’s not surprised when she stops a bank robber on 3rd Ave just past 2 am Saturday morning and strolls a few streets over to see Frost coming out of an alleyway. 

Her shoulders slouch and the exhaustion in her eyes overpowers even the neon green mask. There’s a thin cut over her left eyebrow and a purple bruise blossoming on her neck. The concrete is littered with dead robotic bees, so Frost must have just finished a fight with the Honeybee. 

Vanjie tells Silk over ear comm that she has one last thing to deal with and she’ll be done for the night. She is purposely vague when it comes to Frost, and no one else knows about their nightly battles. They exist only between the two of them, and for Vanjie alone as she replays them when she lays in bed. 

Frost notices her and jumps in the air like something just popped out at her in a haunted house, and Vanjie sees her cheeks flush red in the glow of the streetlight. “Fancy meeting you again. Shall we?” Frost recovers quickly, straightening her shoulders, opening her arms, and gesturing to the brick walls of the alley like they’re about to have a duel to win the hand of a princess. 

“Why you acting like we in _The Princess Bride_? Just shut up and let me melt you like the giant Sno Cone you are.”

“As you wish, Heat Miser,” she smirks, and Vanjie gets the idea that she’s not the only one enjoying their fights. 

“Oohh, you went old-school on that one,” Vanjie nods in approval as she launches herself at Frost. 

It’s the kind of fight Vanjie has come to rely on, even look forward to. Fire and ice going back and forth, fighting for the sake of fighting, because neither of them could emerge the clear winner. She punches, Frost ducks. Frost shoots ice blasts, Vanjie melts them in mid air. It is fast and dizzying and exhilarating, and Vanjie truthfully doesn’t even care who wins. It’s just nice to have the routine. To have a distraction from the world. 

Vanjie’s facing the brick wall, carefully melting ice crystals off her face as Frost politely waits (she said it was cowardly to attack an opponent with their back turned, and the nobility of it all pisses Vanjie off) when she hears the gunshot. 

“What the hell?” she whispers. She runs out into the street and sees a man in a ski mask pointing a gun at girl in her twenties, who is crying and pleading with the man. 

“Put the gun down,” Vanjie commands firmly. She wants to blast this man down the street, but she can’t take the risk with a civilian so close by. 

The gun settles on her, and Vanjie feels the weight of the bullet as it stares her down. She’s thinking she might be able to shoot a fireball at the man and keep the girl safe when all hell breaks loose. 

The girl, no doubt trying to help, tackles the man with the gun, and they collapse to the ground with a grunt and a gunshot. Vanjie sees the bullet coming toward her, observes its individual trajectory, but she can’t move. All she can do is watch, panic blooming in her stomach, as it soars toward her. Something crashes into her and sends her flying sideways onto the concrete. 

Something crashes into her, but it’s not a bullet.

It’s Frost. 

Vanjie looks up, sees Frost doubled over with both hands pressed against her right side, blood pouring out between her fingers. 

What. The. Fuck. 

Frost barks at the girl to run, then freezes the man inside a block of solid ice. She staggers around on the sidewalk, breath coming in wheezing gasps, eyelids fluttering as her suit darkens with blood. Her legs give on her and she drops to the ground like a ton of bricks. Vanjie just stares at her, lips slightly parted, still too stunned to move. 

_Frost saved you_. The thought blares like a siren in her head and plays on repeat as she dazedly pulls herself into a sitting position. 

“What the fuck,” Vanjie mumbles aloud. 

“Everything okay, Vanjie?” Silk’s voice in her ear comm erupts louder than the gunshot. Vanjie had forgotten she was even there. 

“Uh, yeah--yeah, I’m good. Can you send the cops to the alley on 5th? Got a mugger waiting for them. Think I’m gonna head home.”

“Got it,” Silk replies, and then it’s blessedly quiet again. She’s never appreciated quiet so much. 

It would take her a few minutes to defrost the guy, but he did try to kill her, so he can get frostbite for all she cares. Frost’s eyes have fallen shut and she’s stopped moving, side still trickling blood, and Vanjie knows what she has to do. She has to take the bitch home. 

_But she’s evil!_ A voice in her head screams. _She steals, she hurts people, she’s been trying to kill you for eight months!_

_But she saved me_ , another voice says, cool and firm and true, and Vanjie knows which one she’s listening to. She can’t just leave her here for the cops. It’s the right thing to do, if she wants to be all noble about it, but the selfish side of her doesn’t want a bullet to finish Frost off because then she won’t have their nightly fights, won’t have anyone to insult her back. Not to mention that she can probably get some information out of her this way. 

“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters. When did this become her life? She hoists Frost up and carries her cold body home. 

xxx

She struggles through the door, arms full with six feet of ice queen, who she sets on the floor while she gets the apartment ready. 

She spreads old sheets on the couch before draping Frost across it, because the bitch is still bleeding and Vanjie doesn’t have the patience to go couch shopping. 

Vanjie knows she has to take care of the gunshot and considers dumping her back on the street rather than have to play doctor. But Frost is hers now. She digs through her dresser and unearths a too-big T-shirt and a pair of shorts that she never threw away, figuring they’ll fit Frost, before wrestling the tight spandex off her. She leaves the mask on, because you just never touched anyone’s mask. It’s too low a blow, even if Frost probably deserves it. 

Vanjie tries not to look at her body, but it’s impossible. Long and lean, with muscles in all the right places, the pale white marred with cuts, scrapes, scars, and bruises in a variety of shades. Sickly green and yellow scattered over the left side of her rib cage. Purple and blue dotting her arms. A raw red scrape along the side of her leg. “Jesus,” Vanjie breathes, feeling a twinge of sympathy. She had her share of injuries, but this was something else. She gets closer to her chest and abdomen and sees it’s littered with scars, some faded, some more recent. Some look clean, like from surgeries, but others are jagged and harsh. Her fingertips hover over a raised white scar in the center of her chest, wondering how Frost got it-- she stops herself and forces the shirt over Frost’s head. She has no right to look at her like this. She pulls the shorts on her and Vanjie pauses to raise an eyebrow at her toes. They look like someone put them through a meat-grinder, but she doesn’t think that comes from Frost’s evil exploits. 

She has no choice now but to take care of the bullet hole. It passed through the skin between her hip and rib cage, but nothing seems broken, so stitches it is. In her old life, Vanessa could sew, but that was more putting buttons back on shirts, not _putting someone’s actual skin back together_. 

Still, Frost is no use to her if she dies from blood loss, so Vanjie wipes the dust off her sewing kit and gets to work. Thank god the bullet’s not still in her, because surgery is way above her pay grade. She mops up the blood and applies antibiotic ointment, slowly passes the needle through the skin, pretending it’s just a piece of fabric, pausing to gag every now and then. She breathes a sigh of relief when the wound is finally closed, then wraps a white bandage around it. While the first aid kit’s out, she even puts puts a few strips of medical tape on the cut above her eye. 

Frost looks _tiny_ like this, stretched out on her couch in borrowed blue shorts and a gray shirt, face smooth in her sleep, chest rising and falling softly. She looks vulnerable, and child-like, and _normal_. With the suit gone, she’s just a regular person, the bright eye mask the only testament to what she really is. Vanjie always ran warm since the accident, but looking at Frost like this makes her feel like she’s about to spontaneously combust. 

And this time, she thinks the flames will burn her. 

She could wake Frost up now and get this interrogation going, but she did just get shot, after all, so Vanjie lets her rest. She settles into a chair next to the couch and keeps glancing over to make sure she’s breathing. Frost is, admittedly, kind of adorable when she sleeps, nose scrunching up like a kitten, and Vanjie can’t help but smile through her aggravation that she’s been up all night to make sure Frost didn’t run away, or die. 

It’s almost 7:30 am and Vanjie’s hopped up on coffee and ready to get some information when she sees Frost blink hesitantly. Thin rays of sunlight peek through the windows and throw light on Frost’s pale face, giving her an almost angelic glow. This close to her, Vanjie is stunned, almost hypnotized, by the soft green of her eyes. She tears herself away from them, remembers this is an interrogation. 

Once Vanjie’s positive she’s conscious, she lights her hand on fire and leans in. 

“We need to talk.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Frost saves Vanjie and Vanjie takes her home  
> This chapter: Vanjie begins her interrogation of Frost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5! As always, thank you to everyone that has read and commented. Also, thank you so much to @youre-a-kite for your amazing beta skills. Hope you like this one, and I love and appreciate any comments and feedback you have!

Frost forces her eyes open, an unfamiliar ceiling above her. Her mind works slowly, listing facts as she pieces together her surroundings. She’s on a decently comfortable couch. The area above her right hip throbs in pain. Her mask is still on; she can feel the spandex around her eyes, but her suit is gone. She had gotten shot saving Vanj-- a flame lights up near her face. 

“We need to talk.” A voice like a motor roars next to her. 

She blinks sluggishly, and Vanjie comes into focus beside the couch, left hand alight with flame that is gently warming Frost’s face, feeling more cozy than Vanjie probably intends. 

“You got two choices here, Frosty,” Vanjie begins threateningly. “One, I use my powers on you until you talk. Two, you talk to me and you don’t need to get hurt. If you think there’s another option, there’s not. You move, you’re about to get real toasty.” She brings the flame closer to Frost’s face, and the soothing warmth grows to a burning heat. 

“I…” Sweat trickles down her face and she backs into the corner of the couch before she roasts. She doesn’t want to be burned alive, and she can’t beat Vanjie with the shooting pain in her side. “I’ll talk. Please don’t hurt me,” she cedes quietly. 

Vanjie extinguishes the flame and she sighs in relief, causing something to twinge just under her rib cage. She tentatively lowers a hand to her right side and feels a bandage through the shirt she’s wearing, which, she registers with a jolt, must be Vanjie’s. “Did you, um…” she gestures to her side. 

“I stitched you up,” Vanjie answers casually. 

“Like, with a needle and everything?” She grimaces. Thank god she was unconscious for Vanjie playing doctor. But then that means--her heart thunders in her chest--Vanjie saw her without her clothes on. Vanjie saw all her scars and bruises, and she feels raw and exposed, like Vanjie just took a peek into her soul, but that’s not her main concern. No, for some reason, her main concern is if Vanjie liked what she saw. _Jesus. Why is she thinking about that?_

“Yeah, why--wait a minute.” Vanjie grins, and Frost knows she saw her face. “Are you afraid of needles? You are, aren’t you? So you’re a supervillain, but you’re afraid of a little needle?” She laughs, but it’s not the cackling sort of snicker she does when they fight. It’s soft and playful, sweetly amused. 

“Needles are unnatural and they hurt like a bitch,” Frost defends herself. 

“Okay, you right. I just don’t believe it. Afraid of needles. It’s actually kinda cute,” she muses. 

_Cute? Did Vanjie just call her cute?_ “Well, thank you. For the stitches, I mean,” she says awkwardly. 

“No problem. Can’t have a bullet taking you out when that’s my job,” Vanjie waves her off. “You know, you’re pretty polite for an evil bitch,” she remarks. 

“And you yell a lot for a hero,” Frost observes.

A smile dashes across Vanjie’s face, gone just as soon as it came, a brief moment of sun passing through a storm. “Anyway, let’s start my interrogation. Why’d you save that kid from the streetlight?” 

_Fuck. She went for it right out of the gate._ Frost’s mind races as she tries to form an explanation for what she did. “She--her hair. It reminded me of someone. Someone I think was my friend once.”

“Someone you _think_ was your friend?” Vanjie repeats. “But you don’t know?”

“I…I don’t remember anything from before I got my powers. There was a storm, and a plane crash, and then I woke up in the lab.”

“Oh. That must have been awful,” Vanjie murmurs softly. 

Frost is silent. _Don’t think about it, don’t think about it._

“Mine was a fire,” Vanjie says so quietly that Frost wouldn’t be able to hear her if she didn’t have super-hearing. “Some chemical corporation exploded and the fire got my apartment. I passed out from the smoke and woke up in a pile of ash. Everything was gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Frost whispers, and she means it. 

Vanjie stares at the floor like she wants to burn a hole in it. She gives herself a shake. “It’s whatever. I want more answers. What did you do that night in Memstar Labs, when you were bleeding?”

“No one knows this, but they _did_ have a sample of the drug. I-I dropped it by mistake. I cut my hand on the glass, and I put ice over the mess so no one would know,” she says quickly, holding her breath after the lie. 

Vanjie shoots her a pointed glare that chills her insides. “You really think I believe that? I’ve been fighting you for months. There’s no way you dropped something.” Vanjie pauses and exhales sharply, a fire-breathing dragon in red spandex. “Tell me what really happened.”

Frost sighs. “My orders were to take the drug formula back to the lab, but then I saw the sample and I-I wanted to take it for myself. I was having nightmares of my old life, and I was mad that I couldn’t remember anything, and I just...I thought it could help me. I knew I couldn’t take it, because I’d be disobeying orders, but I _wanted_ it, and then I squeezed it too hard and it shattered in my hand. That’s why I was bleeding. The lab didn’t know they had a sample, so I froze it to hide what I did. I brought them the formula and told them I cut my hand on the glass doors.” She doesn’t mean to, but she tells Vanjie the whole story, even the lie she told the lab. There’s something about her that seems trustworthy, like she understands. Maybe the fact that they’ve both suffered and have somehow ended up here, in lives they never asked for, without really meaning to. 

Vanjie takes the story in silence, then grins. “Now we’re talking. So, this lab. That’s who you work for, right? I want to know about them.” 

_No no no. How could she have been stupid enough to mention it? She can’t talk about the lab, she’ll be in so much trouble._ “I can’t talk about it. What else do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything but that,” she tries weakly. 

“I want to know about the lab,” Vanjie insists, but it’s not harsh. It’s more like she’s genuinely curious. 

“I don’t know anything. There’s a bunch of doctors and scientists. This one guy called The General runs everything. I don’t know anything else, I swear.”

“Okay, let’s say I believe you. Can you at least tell me what they do there?”

“They help people. People like me, that have powers or need to forget things. They take care of us. None of can go back to our old lives or have normal lives with what we’ve been through. They keep us safe.” 

“Why do you need to forget things? If they help you so much, why don’t they help you remember what happened?” Vanjie’s starting to get suspicious, that smile she’d had earlier melting away like ice cream in the sun, twisting into a frown, a worried crease forming between her eyebrows. 

_She’s asking too many questions. I can’t tell her about the lab. I’m bad I’m bad I’m bad--_

“Hey, breathe, girl. Calm down. It’s okay,” Vanjie’s voice is surprisingly soft, like velvet, and Frost realizes she’s panting harshly, fighting for every last bit of oxygen in the room, whole body trembling. She takes some slow breaths, pointedly avoiding Vanjie’s concerned look. 

“Why are you bad?” Vanjie asks, and then Frost knows she was speaking out loud. _Shit._

“I-I ca-can’t…”

“Are you bad if you tell me what goes on there?” 

Frost nods. 

“So, you’re bad if you give up information...are you bad if you remember too? Is that why you said the lab helps you forget things?” Vanjie catches on quickly. 

Frost can’t speak. She can’t breathe. Vanjie has sucked all the air out of her lungs. 

Vanjie takes her silence as an answer. “Why aren’t you supposed to remember?”

“It’s b-bad.”

“But why?” She seems truly confused. 

Frost takes in a shaky breath and regains her voice. “They said it would make me sick to remember. When I woke up there, they said I was hurt really bad and I almost died, but they were going to fix me and give me medicine to help me forget what happened. They said I’d be safer if I didn’t know. That I could help them that way.” 

“They’re drugging you,” Vanjie whispers, hand going to her mouth. 

“No, it’s not like that! It’s just medicine. To keep me stable. It makes me feel better when I get it. It helps me. Please, you have to believe me, they saved me...” she gasps for air again, and her eyes are wet. No, she can’t cry. She should’ve never started talking in the first place. Now the lab won’t keep her safe and she might remember and then she’ll be bad--

“Oh my god, this is--this is so fucked up.” Vanjie strides into the kitchen, muttering under her breath. 

She’s in so much trouble. They’ll never take her back now. Vanjie will run and tell her little friends and the lab will know she snitched and it’ll be beyond punishment. They will abandon her. Unless-- there’s only one option. The information can’t get out. She has to kill Vanjie. 

She rises slowly from the couch, hand clutching at her side, thumb running along the edge of the bandage. How can she kill the person who took the time to patch her up? Who had the chance to kill her a hundred times over today and didn’t? 

She sits back down, head swimming. She can’t do it. 

Vanjie comes back to the couch, phone in hand. “Hey, listen,” she begins in a low voice, “I’m gonna call some people I work with. I just want them to come talk to you. They’re not doctors, I promise. Is that okay?”

Frost knows she doesn’t have a choice, but she appreciates Vanjie asking all the same. It’s been a long time since anyone’s asked what she wanted. She nods, then struggles to think of an escape while Vanjie whispers on the phone. She returns with a glass of water and a pill. “It’s just Tylenol, I swear. Your side must hurt.” 

She gratefully swallows the pill, another act of kindness from a woman who owes her nothing. Another reason she can’t kill Vanjie. 

“Can I ask you one more question?”

Frost nods, no fight left in her. There’s nothing Vanjie can ask her that matters anymore. She’s never done anything this bad before. She can’t bring herself to kill Vanjie, and now her friends are coming. She has to stay and talk to them, and then she either has to kill them all or run away before the lab finds out what she’s done. 

“Why did you save me?” Vanjie twirls her light brown hair around her finger while she waits for the answer. 

_Because I watched you help a little boy tie his shoes the other day and I think you’re a good person. Because I want to see you smile when I call you names. Because I hope that, even if you’re not now, you’ll be happy someday. Because seeing you every night is the only thing I look forward to._

“You didn’t deserve to die like that,” she answers finally. 

She closes her eyes and Vanjie takes the hint and leaves her alone. 

It’s 9:30 when Vanjie’s two friends arrive. One is named A’Keria, and the other one goes by Silk. A’Keria seems nice, but Frost tells herself to stop liking either of them. She really needs to stop liking Vanjie too. Because they think the lab is hurting her, but it’s not, and she’ll have to kill the three of them to keep the lab safe. Her hands are sweating and a sick feeling gnaws at her stomach. Can she even take on the three of them when she got shot barely seven hours ago? How can she just kill three people? _But what will the lab do to her if their information gets out?_ Maybe she’ll let Vanjie kill her, just avoid all the trouble. 

Everyone looks at her, but she can’t speak, the words dying on their way up her throat. 

“So, she works for this lab,” Vanjie takes over. “They drug her and make her forget stuff. They tell her it’s medicine. She doesn’t even know they’re doing it to her.”

“What do you mean, I don’t know what they’re doing to me? They’re not drugging me! The lab saved me!” She doesn’t mean to scream, doesn’t think she’s ever been so loud. 

It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. And yet. She thinks of waking up in the lab with bruises from IV tubes she didn’t remember being inserted, with scars she didn’t think she had before. How she was afraid to sleep and have a nightmare because she didn’t want to get in trouble. When she was first at the lab and got scared and cried, and they told her crying was bad-- _No!_ They had saved her from the plane crash, helped her control her powers. She had to protect them. Vanjie was lying. 

“Fuck the lab, girl!” Vanjie shoots back. “They’re the reason you’re so messed up in the first place! They ‘saved’ you, okay, but they’ve been drugging you into the next century on purpose, and you don’t even know it! They’re not helping you, they’re making you their slave!”

She jumps off the couch, ignoring the stabbing pain in her side. “You’re lying! I don’t believe you! I don’t know how I thought I could trust you!” Her shoulders heave, and ice forms along her hands and creeps up her arms. 

“Frost, please listen to me.” Vanjie’s voice is quiet, a lightly flickering candle flame, and the ice begins to melt.

Vanjie stands firm in front of her. She delicately peels her black eye mask away and Frost sees her whole face for the first time. It’s more beautiful than she could have ever imagined. Frost could see most of her face with the mask on, but it was like seeing an unfinished canvas. Now, the painting is finished, the masterpiece unveiled, and Frost gets to experience it for the first time. Her cheeks are soft, her lips inviting. Her skin is smooth as caramel and probably just as sweet. Her eyes are bright and warm, a fire burning strong with compassion, much brighter than they look when rimmed in black spandex. And Frost trusts those eyes. God help her, she does. There’s no way she can kill this woman. 

“Frost, my name is Vanessa. Vanessa Mateo. And I’m not lying to you. You can trust me, I promise.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Vanjie interrogated Frost and revealed her identity  
> This chapter: Frost explains more about the lab and Vanjie deals with her feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kicked my ass, so first off, thank you to youre-a-kite for betaing and helping out with this one. This is longer than the other chapters, I hope it's not too long. Your comments and feedback mean so, so, much to me and I would really appreciate it if you have any for this chapter.

Vanessa runs her mask nervously between her fingers, still not sure how it ended up in her hands. For the first time, she looks at Frost with Vanessa’s eyes, not Vanjie’s. 

The mask isn’t in her way anymore. 

She sees Frost clearly now, and she’s not a supervillain. She’s just a woman who’s scared, who’s been lied to and manipulated. A woman who needs someone to trust, someone to help her. Vanessa would give anything to be that someone. 

Frost collapses onto the couch, eyes wide and breath coming in frantic pants. “Vanessa.” She tests it out slowly, tasting each letter. Vanessa has never given much thought to her own name, especially not since Vanjie overtook her. But Frost says her name like it’s the answer to a question she never thought she’d have the courage to ask. 

“Vanessa,” she repeats, biting her lip. A shiver runs down Vanessa’s spine. “You promise you’re not lying?”

“I promise. I want to help you.” Her tone is so steady and serious even she is surprised by it.

Frost lowers her head into her hands for agonizing seconds that pass by like years. “I trust you,” she says quietly. 

“Vanj, your mask,” Silk hisses. 

“I don’t care.” She’s broken superhero rule number one, but something about Frost, maybe those cool, sad eyes begging to be warmed and brightened, is worth breaking the rule for. It’s not the first rule she’s broken in her life, and if she gets her hands on these lab people, it definitely won’t be the last. 

“Well, okay then,” A’Keria says brightly. “Frost, is it okay if we ask you some questions? We just want to learn about you and the lab, alright?”

Frost lifts her head. “The lab won’t know?”

“No,” Vanessa answers quickly and firmly. “Everything you tell us stays secret. I won’t let them hurt you anymore, okay?”

“Okay.”

Frost burrows herself into the couch, legs crossed, hands in her lap, head down, cushions practically swallowing her whole. The fear is radiating off her, and why wouldn’t it be? The only life she remembers, the only life she knows, is crashing down around her. Frost fidgets beside her and Vanessa has no idea how to help, feeling more useless than a screen door in a submarine. She used to be good at comforting people. Everyone would come to her with their problems, and she’d have them laughing and feeling better in minutes. But there hasn’t been a friend to need her help in a while. 

A’Keria asks questions while Silk takes notes. A’Keria is perfect for this, an empath that senses and manipulates emotions. She’s not using her powers now, but A’Keria didn’t need powers to make people feel good, and she notices Frost picking her head up more often to meet A’Keria’s eyes. 

The basic information comes easy: ice storm, plane crash, powers. It’s the followup questions that make Vanessa want to puke and blow something up and commit elaborately-detailed murders.

 _This is so fucked up_. It was Vanessa’s first thought when Frost told her about the lab, and it’s still the only thing in her head, mainly because if she lets herself think anything else she’ll cry or kill someone (or both, she’ll decide later), as A’Keria asks Frost about her “medicine”.

“Can you tell me how you would feel after they gave it to you? What kind of side effects you had?” she asks gently. 

Frost takes a breath and squares her shoulders, like she’s forcing the words to flow. 

“I’d usually be sleepy, and I’d feel kinda… floaty?” she pauses to make sure A’Keria understands. “My head would be fuzzy, but then I felt better, and all I could think about was following orders. I didn’t have the nightmares, didn’t try to remember. I-I didn’t want to, because it was bad. I just wanted to be good and do what they told me. Sometimes--” she takes another breath, “Sometimes it was like my thoughts weren’t mine? I’d wake up and the night before was blank. Or I’d wake up in the lab and couldn’t remember how I got there and they’d tell me, and I wasn’t sure but my brain listened to it. I listened to whatever they told me. I...it was like I couldn’t think, I-I don’t know how to explain it, I’m sorry…”

Vanessa burns with rage and bites the inside of her cheek to keep from erupting. A’Keria soothes Frost and Vanessa checks out, allowing her mind to wander from the misery weighing the brown leather couch down like an anvil. She settles on a fantasy of her and Frost taking down the lab in a flurry of fire and ice, lets it loop in her mind as Frost explains the little she knows about the lab’s leaders, resurfacing as Frost lists everything the lab told her was bad. 

“Asking questions was bad. Disobeying was bad. When I had nightmares of before the accident, that was the worst. When that happened, they gave me a lot more medicine. Usually it was stronger, and it made me sleep a long time, and when I woke up I didn’t feel awake all the way, you know? I was really bad if I tried to remember, and I...I’m bad for telling you this, I’m bad, I’m bad...” She’s shaking, breathing harsh and ragged, and Vanessa can’t sit and watch anymore. Instinctually, she reaches out and rubs slow circles on Frost’s back, feels the tense muscles trembling beneath her hand. 

A’Keria brings Frost a glass of water, but she’s shaking so much that Vanessa holds it to her mouth while she takes a few sips. Silk puts her notebook away, and it’s a good thing because Vanessa is ready to tear it to shreds and disintegrate it into nothing.

 _What a shit show this turned into_. A few hours ago she was ready to go full-on _Saw_ to get information out of Frost, and now she wants to wrap her in a blanket and hug her while killing anyone that ever made her suffer. 

“I think that’s enough for now. You did such a good job,” A’Keria says warmly. “Would you be alright with us taking a blood sample?” 

“She’s not too big on needles,” Vanessa explains, her heart breaking. She knows they’re doing it to help her, but the poor thing has been through enough. 

“It’s okay,” Frost sighs, holding out her left arm in a well-practiced motion. 

Vanessa wordlessly offers her hand to Frost. She hesitates for a second before grabbing it tightly, and Vanessa rubs her thumb over the cool skin, lets it calm her own fire. 

“Your hand is really warm,” Frost says. 

“Yours is really cold.”

She thinks she could get used to a little cold.  
\---

Silk herds everyone into the kitchen for a “debriefing”. Frost is yawning and her eyes have glazed over, and she accepts gratefully when Vanessa asks if she wants to take a nap. She curls up on the couch and Vanessa carefully lays a blanket over her, smiling as Frost melts into the soft fleece. She’s asleep before Vanessa finishes tucking her in. 

Silk begins somberly. “So, they’re basically numbing her brain activity-”

“I don’t want to hear the science shit right now. What’s our plan?” Vanessa gulps a fresh cup of coffee. She feels like she’s lived three lifetimes since Frost got shot. 

“A’Keria and I are gonna do some research, see what we can find about this plane crash and the lab, then work from there. We’ll need to get her to our base soon, talk to her more, but I think she should stay with you for now, Vanjie. Just be careful.”

“I’ll take care of her. Let me know if you find anything.”

They leave, and the quiet is suffocating. The air is heavy with Frost’s secrets, and Vanessa wishes she could take all the air out of the room and replace it with clean air, air that isn’t poisoned with knowledge. 

Vanessa paces around restlessly. Patience may be a virtue, but it’s certainly not one of hers. She wants to destroy something, but she wants to do it herself, without powers, wants to feel something crush and break beyond repair in her own hands. She could smash wine bottles, but she’d have to drink them first, and as tempting as that sounds, she should probably be sober in case Silk calls. She rifles through her kitchen junk drawer, the burial site for all random things she never threw out, finds some old papers, and tears them into pieces so small she can barely see them, lets them flutter to the floor like tiny white bits of ash. 

She feels somewhat better, but it’s not enough, and she can’t go on a rampage when she’s supposed to watch Frost, so she sighs and resumes her post in the chair beside the couch, studying Frost’s slow breathing. She seems so peaceful that Vanessa can pretend today never happened, pretend she hasn’t taken away Frost’s entire life, her entire world, in a matter of hours. Not that Vanessa’s world is too stable at the moment either. The “villain” she’s been fighting for almost a year is nothing more than an innocent person who’s been drugged and brainwashed. And to top it all off, Vanessa thinks she might like her. No, not might. She definitely likes her. Likes her graceful limbs, how she smells like strawberries, her rare smiles when they fought. Likes the sound of her voice, the green of her eyes, the kindness in her that the lab hasn’t managed to take away. Yeah, she definitely likes her. 

Vanessa tries to distract herself with TV, but nothing on screen is as distracting as Frost.  
\---

The sky is dark when Vanessa hears Frost mumbling in her sleep. It sounds like she’s pleading with someone, and Vanessa tries not to intrude as she gently grips her shoulder to wake her. 

Frost’s body tosses back and forth and the blanket lands on the floor before her eyes snap open. She’s trembling, and she stares right at Vanessa but her eyes are miles and maybe even years away, and Vanessa knows that whatever she’s seeing, wherever her mind is, it’s not this apartment. 

“You’re okay, you’re safe.” She takes Frost’s hand, hoping the touch will bring her back. She keeps whispering, telling Frost she’s okay, as her breathing slows and her eyes seem to focus. 

“I-I’m sorry.” She wipes beads of sweat off her forehead. 

“No, don’t be sorry. I get them too.” 

She has no idea what to say next. What did you say to someone after you found out they’ve been drugged by a secret lab? She doesn’t want to make Frost talk about her nightmare if she’s uncomfortable, not to mention that trauma-based night terrors are a pretty fucked-up topic for bonding with someone. 

“Are you hungry?”

Frost shakes her head, and Vanessa doesn’t blame her. She doesn’t even think she could eat chips right now, the anger and sadness like lead in her stomach, stealing her appetite. 

Vanessa thinks of what her mom would do, tries to swallow back the pain that comes with the memory. “How about hot chocolate?” 

Frost nods eagerly, green eyes shining with excitement. 

Vanessa pours the milk in the mugs and she’s six years old again, shouting about a fight she’d gotten in at school while her mom calms her down. _That’s gone now_ , she reminds herself as she goes to town piling on whipped cream, because people who didn’t like whipped cream had no soul.

“Are you trying to be funny?” Frost asks, holding up her blue mug decorated with tiny dancing snowmen. 

“Nope, I just happened to grab that one.” 

Frost’s lips turn up at the corners, and then she laughs. A real, genuine laugh, one that Vanessa doesn’t think she’s ever heard before. She laughs too, cutting through the leftover tension and filling the deathly quiet apartment. 

Frost grins at her, and it’s that grin that pushes her. “Hey, you wanna come in my bed with me? It’s way more comfortable.”

And Frost, though looking shocked at her answer, says yes.  
\---

“So, your name is Vanessa?” Frost slurps her hot chocolate. A dollop of whipped cream, white as snow, lands on the tip of her nose. 

Vanessa reaches over and wipes it away, letting her touch drift across the cool plane of Frost’s nose before popping her finger into her mouth. Frost’s cheeks redden and she smiles again, but nervously, shyly, like she’s not used to doing it so often. 

“Yeah, why?” 

“And your hero name is Vanjie? It’s just not really...creative, I guess? Sorry.”

Vanessa laughs. “No, I get it. Silk and A’Keria literally spent days coming up with names for me. Blaze, Torch, Fireball. I didn’t want any of them. Made me feel like a kid playing dress-up. Vanjie’s something my mom used to call me.” Not that she’s around to call her that anymore. 

“Oh. That’s nice, I like that.”

“What’s your name?” Her mouth blurts the question on its own, and she kicks herself immediately after. What was she thinking? That they would drink hot chocolate and gossip like twelve-year-olds at a sleepover? That Frost would feel the same connection she’s been denying for months and something would happen? 

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Vanessa amends quickly. “You don’t have to tell me. I get it.”

“It’s not that,” Frost begins. “I would tell you. Really, I would. It’s just...I don’t know it.” 

“What?”

“I-I can’t remember it. I couldn’t remember when I woke up there, and they never told me. Said it wasn’t important. Whenever I asked they said it was bad to ask and gave me more medicine.”

Vanessa’s heart breaks all over again. _They took her name away_. They took her name away and she doesn’t understand she did nothing wrong. She blinks away tears so Frost won’t see, head filling with fantasies of burning that lab to the ground.

“Oh. That’s--I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“This is gonna sound awful, but sometimes I wish I could forget.” It’s the first time she’s ever confessed it to anyone. Something about the night, or Frost, is making her want to talk in a way she hasn’t in years. “I lost my family and everything in the fire, but I still remember them, and there’s some days I wish I could erase it all from my mind. Just forget everything I had, because I can’t have it anymore, you know? Like maybe it would hurt less. But it’s better than your situation. Shit, you don’t even know your own name.”

“Remembering can be hard too,” Frost says softly. 

They sip hot chocolate in a comfortable silence, Vanessa growing warmer and warmer inside despite the cool body next to her. Her mom used to say her mouth ran like a sewer, words spewing out faster than anyone could hear, but this is the most Vanessa has said to anyone since the accident. She misses talking, or maybe she just misses having someone to talk _to_. She shimmies down the mattress and lays on her side, Frost copying the movement. She bites her lip like she wants to say something and Vanessa smiles reassuringly and waits for the words to come. 

“Vanessa?” 

“Yeah?”

“I want to, um…”

Vanessa nods in encouragement and watches, not daring to hope, as Frost’s hands make their way up to her mask. She takes a deep breath before pulling it away from her face. 

With the mask gone, her face is finally on full display. It’s like a Technicolor high-definition image when you’ve been used to a clunky black-and-white TV with rabbit ears. Her smooth skin, her flushed cheeks, her bold lips, the striking bright green of her eyes steal Vanessa’s breath away. Who needs to breathe anyway? 

“You’re beautiful,” Vanessa whispers. She cautiously lets her thumb brush across Frost’s face, seeking proof that this is real, that Frost really is in front of her and not a hologram or some kind of sci-fi shit. Frost doesn’t flinch away like Vanessa thought she might, but leans into the touch. Her skin is cool but warming rapidly as Vanessa’s fingers dance around, touching her nose. Her cheeks. Her forehead. 

Her lips. 

Vanessa’s thumb ghosts over Frost’s wide lips, and she imagines how it would feel to press her own lips against Frost’s. Is she crazy? She can’t take advantage of her, she probably doesn’t even feel the same way--

And then Frost’s thumb is on her cheek, the cold touch seeping into Vanessa’s skin and melting away inside her. She runs a finger over Vanessa’s eyebrow as Vanessa moves her hand to rest on Frost’s cheek, and she’s thinking maybe Frost would be okay with a kiss when a stream of moisture washes over her fingers. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she pulls her hand away. “Did I burn you or somethin’?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just--you shouldn’t be nice to me, you shouldn’t be touching me, I don’t deserve it, I’m bad! The stuff I did...it was wrong! I should be punished for it, I hurt people!” 

“No, no, stop,” Vanessa shushes her. “Listen to me. This is not your fault. The lab did this to you, okay? It wasn’t you.”

“But it was! I should’ve fought harder, I should’ve known it was wrong, but I just listened to them! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” the tears fall thick as raindrops and Frost starts coughing as she struggles to breathe through the sobs. Vanessa quickly brings her hand back up, caressing her cheek and wiping the tears away. 

“There was nothing you could have done. You fought real hard, I know you did. You saved that girl, you saved me. You couldn’t fight against everything they did to you. You’re so brave, Frost, and this isn’t your fault, okay?” She eases her back against the mattress and places Frost’s head on her chest. She wraps her arms around the taller woman and strokes her back, whispers soothing words to her until she is able to take an easy breath. 

Eventually her breathing steadies, and Vanessa realizes she’s asleep. She tightens her hold on Frost and places a gentle kiss on the top of her head. She knows that when all this is over, Frost will probably need more help than Vanessa can give her, but for now, she holds on as tight as she can. She lets her tears fall this time, and while most are for Frost, some are for herself.  
\---

She wakes up and Frost is still there. She’s still there and it almost scares Vanessa to not be in an empty bed. Frost lies on her side, eyes burning into Vanessa. “Sorry, did I wake you? I wanted to let you sleep.”

“No, you’re fine.” She scooches across the bed and runs her fingers through Frost’s short blonde hair while she hums with pleasure. 

The soft hair between her fingers is calming, a reminder that the past day has been real and not a dream, and she’s thinking she could do this all day when Frost’s stomach growls. 

“Sorry,” she laughs. “I guess the hunger caught up with me.”

“I guess so,” Vanessa smiles. “I’m pretty hungry too. You like pancakes? My mom always used to make ‘em on Sundays.”

Frost bobs her head up and down happily, making her look like an enthusiastic golden retriever, then suddenly bolts into a sitting position. 

“Today’s Sunday?” she asks, voice deadly serious. 

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh my God.” She throws the covers back to the mattress and launches out of the bed. Vanessa trails behind her in confusion. Clothes litter the living room floor and Frost is tugging her suit back on, wincing in pain. 

“I never had a girl run out of my bed before. Usually they begging me to stay.” Frost doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile. “You gonna tell me what the hell’s going on?” 

“It’s Sunday, I go to the lab for my medicine on Sunday, I’m late, I have to go,” she informs Vanessa in one breath, zipping her suit. 

“You can’t go back there! Everything they’ve done to you, and you’re gonna let them do it again?!”

“I have to! They’re probably already at my apartment looking for me!” 

No. This isn’t happening. Just last night they were in bed together, masks off. Just last night she had Frost in her arms and wasn’t going to ever let her go. She can’t be taken away from her already. The pillows still smell like strawberries. 

“But we...we can help you. Let me call Silk, just don’t go back there, please. _Please_.”

“I don’t have a choice.” She yanks on her green boots. 

Vanessa grabs her arm. _Is this the last time she’ll get to touch her?_ “What about your stitches?” her mind scrambles for something, _anything_ , that will stop Frost from going back. “How are you gonna explain that?”

“I...I’ll tell them I got shot, and I stitched it myself because I couldn’t make it to the lab, and that I overslept.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?” _How badly will they punish her? Will she still be herself when they’re done? Will she even remember last night?_

“Probably,” she admits. “But I can’t come up with anything else, and I-I don’t have time, I have to go. Look, it’s more dangerous if I don’t go at all. It’s just routine. They’ll do their exam and give me my shots and then I’ll come back to you, I promise.” Vanessa can’t tell which of them she’s trying to sound brave for. 

_But will you still be you when you come back?_

She runs back to the bedroom while Vanessa stands there, tears pooling in her eyes as she fails to think of a way out. She’s helpless, and she hates to be helpless. Frost returns, smoothing her mask over her face, and Vanessa knows this is it. She knows Frost is insisting things will be fine, but she can’t help but feel that everything is about to be ripped from her right now, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She can’t even get her mouth to form the words about last night and how it’s the happiest she remembers being in years. 

“Vanessa, I’m sorry. About everything. I’m so sorry.”

A car door slams, and they turn to the window, where a black van has pulled up. 5 men exit, three in black suits, one in army gear, one in a white coat. 

“Are they tracking you?” she asks Frost. 

Her eyes widen and she curses under her breath. “They must be, I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” she says genuinely, and Vanessa figures they probably chipped her without her knowing. 

Frost grabs Vanessa’s face. “Get out of here. Go to your friends and get help. I’ll hold them off.”

“I’m not leaving you here for them!” She peeks out the window. They’re already entering the lobby, and time is running out. 

Vanessa sprints to her room and struggles into her suit, pressing the emergency call button on her bracelet. 

She stands by Frost’s side in the living room, holding her hand and hoping it says everything she can’t. Choking back a sob, she pushes away Vanessa, pushes away last night, and forces herself to become Vanjie. Vanessa can’t matter right now. Frost glances down at her. “Vanessa, I lo-”

The door bursts open and the men rush inside. 

“You’ve been very bad, Frost,” the man in the white coat, probably a doctor, taunts her. 

The change in her is immediate. She bows her head and her entire body curls inward, and Vanjie hates that anyone can make her feel so small. 

“You’re not bad Frost, they are!” Vanjie yells, lobbing a fireball at one the suit men. It grazes his arm and he stamps it out as one of the others turns his gun on her. She sends him flying into the wall with a crash, but not before he gets a shot off. It’s some kind of pulse rifle, and the energy burst burns through her. She twists on the ground, muscles convulsing as she rides out the pain. 

“Don’t hurt her,” Frost begs. “Don’t hurt her, please!”

Two of the men get Frost’s shoulders and force her to her knees, and she doesn’t fight. _She doesn’t fight_ , Vanjie realizes, _because she thinks they’ll hurt me if she does_. One pulls Frost’s hands behind her back and the other grabs her head and twists it roughly to the side, exposing her neck. She watches in horror as the doctor pulls a giant-ass needle, big enough to tranquilize an elephant, out of his briefcase. He shoves the needle into Frost’s neck while she whimpers in pain and Vanjie’s heart shatters.

They shove her on to the living room floor, whole body twitching, hands pressed against her head. Then it’s over. Frost stands up shakily, and as soon as Vanjie looks in her eyes, she knows. These are not the warm, bright eyes of the Frost she spent last night with, because this is not her Frost. This is not the Frost who laughed with her in a hot chocolate sugar rush and got whipped cream on her nose and lay in Vanessa’s arms. This is not even the kind-of nice Frost she’s been fighting the past eight months. This is the Frost the lab has always wanted. 

And this Frost is going to kill her. 

“Frost,” she tries. “Please, it’s me, it’s Vanessa. You know me. _You know me._ ”

"Who's Vanessa?" 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Frost told Vanessa the truth and they spent the night together, but the lab ambushed them and Frost no longer remembers Vanessa  
> Now: The aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger! This was such a hard chapter to write. I redid parts of it 4 or 5 times, and I really want to thank youre-a-kite for betaing and dealing with my endless questions for this. I really appreciate all your comments and feedback! They kept me going while I wrote this one, and I would love if you had any more for this chapter!

_She’s in Vanessa’s bed._

_Vanessa’s warmth is dizzying, intoxicating, and it could be a sugar high, but Frost thinks she can do it. She wants to do it, wants Vanessa to understand that she trusts her with everything she has. She told Vanessa everything today, why bother with the mask anymore?_

_She’s free from the neon spandex. She feels bare without it. She’s never let anyone see her like this, and it’s bare, yes, but it’s also_...free. _Like she doesn’t have to hide anymore, doesn’t have to put it on to exist. She can just be. Even if the person behind the mask isn’t someone she knows_ how _to be just yet._

_Vanessa’s hands are on her face, gentler than she imagined for a firecracker like her, and Frost is warm. Warmer than she can ever remember being. Vanessa has reached deep inside her and warmed places so cold she didn’t think they could feel anything anymore._

_She wants--she wants to touch Vanessa. Would Vanessa be okay with it? Vanessa’s hands roam over her lips as if in response, and Frost lets her thumb meet Vanessa’s cheek. It is every bit as warm and as soft as she thought it would be, and it heats her entire body, but all she can think about is how many times she’s punched this cheek, stolen its warmth with an ice blast or tainted its caramel color with a bruise, how many times Vanessa has hurt because of_ her, _and the tears are falling before she can stop them. She waits for Vanessa to tell her crying is bad, to punish her, but it never comes. Instead, Vanessa just wipes her tears away and rubs her back, and she’s safe. She’s safe and she wants to stay in Vanessa’s arms forever and--_

\--she’s not in the bed, she’s on the floor, carpet rough against her cheek, and she’s desperately trying to remember last night but it’s like trying to keep water in her hands; the memories are pouring out of her brain and she can’t hold on. 

Vanjie is on the floor too, eyes glistening with tears. _But why is Vanjie here? And where the hell is she?_ She picks herself up, staggering a little, and looks down at Vanjie. 

Vanjie’s pleading with her, practically begging. She calls herself Vanessa and insists that Frost knows her. She asks aloud who Vanessa is, confused. Frost doesn’t remember ever knowing a Vanessa in her life, but it does seem familiar, like when you saw an old friend years later and all you had was a vague idea of their name. 

She’s still trying to get the fog to clear out of her head when Vanjie shoots fire at the others in the room, and whirs past her, two _thumps_ ringing out as people hit the floor. 

“Frost!” someone booms. The voice almost shatters her eardrums. She whirls around and sees the General and her doctor looking expectantly at her. When did they get here? When did _she_ get here, for that matter?

It’s a tiny apartment, pretty cozy-looking. She must be in the living room, judging by the brown leather couch and squashy green armchairs. Has she been here before?

“ _Frost_!” Right. Focus. 

“On your knees,” the General commands, and Frost’s body obeys and her knees sink into the carpet. 

“I’m gonna be nice to you.” The General crouches down and takes her chin roughly, forcing her to look at him. He is inches from her; she can see the snake-like veins running through his gray eyes. “I am going to wait right here in this apartment. You have one hour to bring me that fire bitch. You do that, and we’ll forget everything that happened today. I won’t even punish you. Fail to bring me her, and you will be punished until you beg me for mercy.” His words are cool and matter-of-fact, and once Frost has absorbed them into her brain, they won’t leave. She knows what she has to do. 

“I understand,” she tells him, rising to her feet. “I’ll bring you Vanjie.”

Vanjie is out in the street, talking in hushed voices to her friends, Almighty A’Keria flaunting a hot pink suit and the Silkworm in some black outfit reminiscent of a cockroach. Her mouth tingles with confessions she thinks she told them, but she also can’t remember ever even meeting them.

She gives herself a shake. Get Vanjie. “So we’ve got Little Miss Sunshine, low-budget Spider-Man, and Melisandre over here,” she taunts. The words feel strange once she hears them, like she opened her mouth and they just came out without her knowledge. 

But Vanjie doesn’t call her anything back. Instead, she looks sad, and all she manages is a soft, “Frost, please.” 

Her voice is gentle, without its usual roughness that makes her sound like a lawn mower that’s taken up chain smoking. Something deep inside Frost begins to ache. Why is Vanjie being nice? Can she really bring her to the General? But if she doesn’t--

_\--The General throws her into a tiny room, door slamming shut as she clatters onto the tile. She had failed her mission; she was supposed to kill a man trying to stop the General but he had gotten away. The room is hot--searing, scorching hot--and a thermometer on the wall reads 175 degrees. Her skin feels like it’s blistering and she thinks she’s suffocating, and the thermometer hits 193 before she blacks out--_

“Are you okay?” Vanjie is the one speaking but the other two look equally concerned and as Frost becomes aware that sky surrounds her, not tiled walls, she discovers that she is hunched over with her hands pressed against the sides of her head. 

“Leave me alone!” she sends the other two flying backward with ice blasts before they can do anything, leaving Vanjie for her to take. The punishment last time was her fault. She won’t fail a mission again. 

She hooks her fingers into Vanjie’s shoulder, dragging her down the street. Vanjie just lets herself get tossed around like a rag doll, and it makes Frost’s blood boil. “Why aren’t you fighting me?” she challenges as she throws her onto the pavement. Vanjie sucks in a breath and cringes as her side scrapes against the sidewalk and Frost feels good. She doesn’t want to but she does. Vanjie jumps to her feet like a cat, expression sad yet calm, more subdued than normal. 

“What, no nickname for me? How about Frozone?” Frost demands, her fists going at Vanjie faster than ever. It’s like they’re out of her control entirely as they bruise Vanjie’s skin. The anger is buzzing inside her and she wants to tear the world apart with her hands, starting with Vanjie. It scares her but she can’t stop it, the anger pulsing with each frenzied heartbeat. 

“Frost, this isn’t you. I know it’s not. They did this to you. But we can help.” Vanjie somehow keeps up this endless stream of chatter while dodging the avalanche of punches, and in another life Frost would tease her about her motormouth and Vanjie would laugh, and her lips would stretch into a grin, and her eyes would shine, and--

“This is me! Stop acting like you know me!”

“Frost, please. I do know you. I care about you. Do you remember anything from last night? You took your mask off for me, remember?”

Frost has an open shot at Vanjie’s face but doesn’t take it. _She took her mask off_. She couldn’t have. But she has the faint idea Vanjie is right. She has a flash, almost like a dream, of the cool spandex in her hands, but can’t remember the mask ever leaving her face. She feels the ghost of a warm hand on her cheek but doesn’t know whose it was or how they might have looked at her as their touch heated her skin. The images feel real, and she simultaneously remembers and doesn’t remember. It’s like watching scenes from a movie, like seeing glimpses of someone else’s life. 

“You’re lying! You don’t care about me!” She kicks at Vanjie’s leg and grins as she hits the ground. She rises slowly and just looks at her, brown eyes wide, but still doesn’t even raise a finger in retaliation. 

“Frost, I do care. I like you, and I want to help you and make sure the lab doesn’t hurt you again. Whatever they gave you, it’s making you sick. You’re not being you right now. I care about you, you have to believe me.” Her eyes are intense, worried crease on her forehead, voice oozing sincerity, and Frost longs to surrender. To just stop fighting. She’s so _tired_. But she can’t. She has her orders, and if she fails--a sudden pain bursts in her head like a bolt of lightning, and she thinks Vanjie’s asking if she’s okay but she’s not there--

_\--she’s in an uncomfortable bed in some kind of hospital, surrounded by doctors. The lights above her head are blinding and she squints against them. There’s sticky things on her chest connected to monitors with lines and numbers she doesn’t understand, and there’s a brace on her right arm and a dull ache in her left arm where tubes have been inserted from her hand to her elbow, and she’s not sure she’s completely awake. She feels like she’s in that half-conscious, going-to-the-bathroom-in-the-middle-of-the-night state, trying not to wake all the way so you could fall back asleep right after._

_“W-where am I?” The words feel funny coming out of her mouth, like her lips aren’t moving. Her entire body feels like it’s not hers. The tips of her fingers are tinged blue and she can’t stop shivering._

_“You’re in the lab. You don’t need to worry about that,” one of the doctors tells her. “Do you know your name?”_

_She opens her mouth and nothing comes out, and the fear grips her like a vise. She never thought much about her name. It was a reflex, rolling off her tongue without a thought when someone asked. But she can’t answer. She doesn’t know it, and she hears the monitors beep around her as her heart races. She can’t breathe, and ice is running up her arms as tears are running down her face—_

_The doctor slaps her, hard enough that her numb cheeks sting. “Don’t cry. Crying is bad, you understand?”_

_She hears him tell another doctor that they’ve been successful and she has no name recollection. He tells her that her injuries are severe, that they’ve started fixing them, but she can’t listen. Her head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton and the room is spinning and she grabs fistfuls of the sheets as she squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe this is all just a dream, because this can’t be right. How did she get here? Where is here? She remembers a plane, and screaming, and then it’s all blank. There’s a pinch in her arm, and she doesn’t care anymore. The doctor tells her to be a good girl and sleep, and she does._

“Frost, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Vanjie’s voice is more concerned than it has any right to be, and Frost just can’t take it. She brings a hand to her cheek, the pain of the slap overtaking the caress of the mystery hand. Her head is throbbing, a ticking time bomb coming closer to detonation with each flashback. The images flicker in her mind on repeat: the thermometer on the wall, the lumpy bed in the lab, the doctor’s face, and a different bed, a soft one, with someone asleep beside her--a scream pierces the air and she thinks it’s her own. There’s a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off and secures Vanjie to the wall in a spray of ice. She’ll come back for her later, she needs _quiet_. 

An alleyway shelters her and her back slams against sun-baked brick. She fixes her hands over her ears like it will stop her head from exploding. Why did she keep seeing these stupid memories? And the doctor-- he had said they were successful when she didn’t remember. Did that mean they _wanted_ her to forget her name and lose her memory? All that medicine she’d been given--it was to _make_ her forget. They didn’t want her to remember anything. 

_They did this to you_ , Vanjie said. But what exactly had they done? The alleyway is tilting like she’s on a carnival ride and her stomach lurches dangerously. Of all the places she could pick to throw up, this alleyway reeking of piss and moldy garlic is very low on the list, and she clamps her mouth shut, legs quivering. She doesn’t even have much in her stomach, except for...hot chocolate. Yes, hot chocolate, with a mountain of whipped cream towering above the mug, and her tongue is still scorched from the hot sweetness but she can’t recall actually drinking it, or who gave it to her. 

Every time she blinks the walls get closer, sweat trickling down her neck. Her cheeks are damp; fuck, is she crying? She’s looking at the world through a cloth; everything seems hazy, the colors and shapes dim and blurry. That same cloth is lodged in her throat, because she gasps for air but nothing gets in. She’s dying, and maybe that’s okay because then she won’t have to bring Vanjie to the General or get punished for not doing it...

There’s a hand on her shoulder, not as hot this time, soothing words being whispered near her ear, slowly creeping in to her brain. She can feel the calm seeping into her suit, like magic, and her chest expands as air gets in this time. A dam breaks somewhere inside her and the fear rushes out as the walls become solid again.

She cautiously opens her eyes to see a vision of bright pink, A’Keria smiling warmly at her. 

“Just take a breath. It’s okay,” A’Keria tells her and Frost believes it. She lets her lungs fill with air as the last bits of anger and anxiety melt away and the fog parts in her mind. 

“I...thank you,” she whispers hoarsely. 

“No problem. Got someone who wants to talk to you, though,” she motions her head toward the mouth of the alley, where Vanjie stands, the sun framing her petite body.

Frost nods. She hears Vanjie murmur a _thanks_ to A’Keria as they pass, and then Vanjie stands firmly in front of her, hands on her hips. 

“I know you don’t want to hurt me,” Vanjie says quietly. “You don’t want to hurt anyone. You never did.” 

She doesn’t want to hurt Vanjie. She really doesn’t. But her mission… she forms a half-hearted ice spear and just holds it, doesn’t even lift her hand. 

“You’re not a bad person. All that stuff you did, it was them, not you. I know you can fight it. You fought it when you saved me. You fought it when you told us what happened to you. You’re a good person, Frost. I can see it in you. A’Keria sees it in you. Even Silk does, and that bitch kinda hates everyone.”

The icicle falls from her fingers and shatters, and she imagines her mind fragmenting the same way. 

“Look, I know you’re scared and you’re angry, but they’re making you that way, okay? You gotta fight them. Don’t let them make you something you’re not. You’re a good person, remember?”

 _It was them, not me. I’m a good person._

Flashes of events she’d long forgotten assault her brain, nearly splitting her head in two. 

_Vanjie laughing so hard she stopped her punch in mid-air after Frost called her Prince Zuko._

_The day the doctor took so much blood she fainted._

_The scent of hot chocolate, Vanjie wiping whipped cream off her nose._

_When one of the lab’s medicine samples made her so sick she couldn’t move for two days._

_The General breaking two fingers when she asked her name for the second (and last) time._

_When they fought outside an ice cream place and Vanjie tossed a cone at her as a joke._

_Vanjie bursting into laughter when Frost threw jalapenos at her the next night as payback._

_She and Vanjie going easy on each other when they were both exhausted._

_Vanjie smiling at her across the mattress. Vanjie’s hands on her face. Vanjie’s hands in her hair._

Why did her mind keep coming back to Vanjie? Why did she always feel the best when she was with her? She can’t remember everything from last night; her brain hits a roadblock every time she tries to think about it. But she knows that Vanjie was kind to her, and that she trusted her, and that’s enough. She knows that Vanjie clears the fog in her mind somehow. Or maybe that’s not quite right. It’s more like she’s the light shining through the fog, on the other side of it, and if Frost can make her way out of the darkness, she’ll get to bask in that glow too. 

Frost wants that glow. She wants the light and its warmth. She can fight through the fog, Vanjie is right. She’s done it before and she can do it again. 

She knows what she has to do. 

Frost lowers her head and finally lets her lips meet Vanjie’s. She crouches slightly so Vanjie doesn’t pull a muscle trying to reach, burying her hands in the soft brown hair. Vanjie’s arms are strong around her, the warmth starting in her back and spreading all the way to her cheeks. Her own heart is pounding, and she feels Vanjie’s heart beating in time with hers, proof that she is here and in her arms. She can never give this heart to the General. 

She forces herself to pull away from the kiss. “Vanjie, there’s...there’s something I need to do.”

“I’m coming with you!”

“Please, I have to do it alone.” She can’t take the risk of putting her right in the General’s hands. 

Vanjie’s mouth opens but she closes it and nods. “Just come back to me.”

“Promise.”

“Give him hell, girl,” A’Keria whispers as Frost passes her. 

Her long legs quickly cut the distance back to the apartment building. She puts her head down and refuses to stop, knowing she won’t make it if she does. 

“Well?” The General questions. “Where is she?”

“You can’t have her.”

“Are you disobeying me?”

She hides her hands behind her back so he won’t see them shaking. “Yes. Yes I am. You can’t have Vanjie. Take me instead. Do whatever you want with me.” She keeps her voice detached and expression blank as the icicle spear grows in her hand, hidden from view. 

“Oh, there’s a lot of things I’ll do with you, Frost. The heat room was always a favorite of mine. Maybe we’ll put you back in there, see how much you can take? Or maybe we’ll test some new medicine on you?”

She’s across the room in seconds, icicle spear at the General’s throat--something sinks deep into her left thigh and the icicle drops while she curses in pain, looking around wildly to see the doctor in the corner of the room, gun in hand. _How had she forgotten about him?_

The gun fires again, bullet embedding in her stomach this time. The pain doesn’t stop her. She sends another icicle flying through the air and watches as it sails clean through the doctor’s throat. 

She works the ice through her hands, the spear point sharper than ever. The General grunts as she shoves him into the wall. 

“You’re such a disappointment,” he spits. “You were our biggest hope. We took you out of that plane crash. You had no one to miss you. We _made_ you. And this is what you do.” 

She positions the point over his heart. “You don’t want to do that,” the General says. “That’s bad. You know what happens when you’re bad. Are you bad, Frost?”

“I’m a good person,” she echoes Vanjie’s words. “You’re the bad one. And you won’t hurt me ever again. Fuck you.” She brings the icicle straight through his chest, watching the hatred go out of him as he collapses onto the floor. _He can’t hurt me again._

She stumbles out of the apartment in a haze. _They can’t hurt me anymore. They can’t hurt me anymore._ If she keeps telling it to herself, maybe she’ll believe it, because right now it feels like a cruel trick and hope is something Frost doesn’t really know how to feel. 

Vanjie. She needs Vanjie. She spots a glimmer of red spandex down the sidewalk, like an angel, and it keeps her moving, even as the pain catches up with her and her leg screams from the bullet hole. Her abdomen is bleeding heavily and her side is sticky with blood where the stitches must have torn. 

“Vanjie,” she groans. Her legs no longer work, and she drops, Vanjie’s arms darting in to grab her before she hits the ground and carefully lowering her to the concrete. Her face is marred with bruises--bruises that _I_ gave her, Frost notes with a rush of guilt--and she winces as she kneels, but her attention is entirely on Frost as she pulls her into her lap. 

“Oh my god,” Vanjie whispers. “You’re bleeding, are you hurt bad? I’m gonna call Silk, just hang on.”

“‘M fine,” she mumbles. “There’s two dead bodies in your apartment though. Sorry.”

Vanjie laughs nervously. “Jesus.” She grabs her hand and jerks back like she got burned. “Fuck, your hand is freezing.”

“Ice powers, remember?”

“No, you’re really cold.” No jokes, no witty remarks, and Frost allows a tiny speck of worry to take shape in her chest. 

She takes Vanjie’s hand back. “Vanjie, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize now. Don’t act like this is a deathbed confession or some shit,” Vanjie moves their linked hands to put pressure on the hole in Frost’s stomach, whispering a _sorry_ when she hisses in pain. 

“No, I want to tell you. I’m sorry, and the truth is, I...I love you. I really do. I just wanted to make sure you knew.” She watches Vanjie’s eyes sparkle at her words, and she smiles slightly. 

She loses the fight against her leaden eyelids and Vanjie’s concerned voice is the last thing she hears before--

_\--she’s in her bedroom. Her childhood bedroom, with the flowered bedspread. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s thought about it, but it’s exactly as she remembers (or at least as she thinks she remembers): light purple walls, the bedspread, her overflowing bookcase, her army of stuffed animals. And above the bed--her heart skips a beat--the nameplate. The long painting with her name in the middle and ballet slippers at the ends. Ballet slippers. She used to dance. It comes to her suddenly, and it feels so right, a perfectly fitting puzzle piece, that she can’t believe how she forgot. Of course she used to dance._

_But the letters are gone. The slippers are there, but the middle is blank. The tears are hot as they roll down her face. How can she remember her bedroom but forget the most important part?_

_“Hey, it’s okay. Just focus. I know you can do it.” A soft voice appears out of nowhere._

_“You can do it,” Vanjie repeats._

_“It’s me. It’s Vanessa. I know you’re in there somewhere, and you can be you again, okay? They can’t hurt you anymore.” Vanjie--no, Vanessa--puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her head to look up at the nameplate._

Six letters, _she tells herself._ There should be six letters. An _R_ somewhere, maybe?

 _She stares at the picture, willing the letters to appear, and Vanjie’s hand is wrapped around hers, but that’s not then, it’s_ now, and---

She remembers. She remembers. 

“Vanessa, I remember,” she says breathlessly. 

“My name,” she pauses, savors the words on her tongue, the joy of finding something after an endless search, of getting that Christmas gift you wanted after months of waiting. 

“My name is Brooke.” 

“Brooke,” Vanessa repeats softly, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Brooke.” Her warm hand smoothes over her ice-cold cheek. 

It would be so nice to close her eyes…

“Hey, hey, stop that. Please stay awake. Brooke, please, I love you, okay? I love you, and I can’t lose you already…”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and it is. The pain is fading. Everything is fading, and she barely registers that she is being lifted into Vanessa’s arms. 

It really is okay. She knows her name now. Vanessa knows how she feels. And she knows how Vanessa feels about her. It’s more than she ever thought she could have. 

She just wishes she could have kissed Vanessa one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, at this point I'm planning on 2 more chapters and an epilogue, but I'm not sure I'm ready to say goodbye to this world yet. I do have some ideas for a sequel, maybe 5-6 parts, nothing concrete yet, so I wanted to see if there's any interest in that? Please let me know, and if there's anything you'd like to see in a sequel, I would love to hear that as well!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Brooke kills her abusers and tells Vanessa she loves her before passing out  
> Now: Lots of recovery and fluff (and also kitties and baked goods)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that's still reading! I've finally fed the children some fluff after all this angst! Thank you so, so much to @youre-a-kite, for your support and amazing feedback with this. I would appreciate and love any comments or feedback you have!

Brooke has been asleep for three days. 

The doctors at the base removed the bullets from her abdomen and thigh. They found and removed a GPS tracking chip in her left shoulder after Vanessa mentioned it. They controlled the bleeding, stitched her up, put her on antibiotics. She’s hooked up to monitors, her life reduced to lines and beeps and numbers, and her chest rises gently, but she still won’t _wake up_. 

Vanessa shivers as she remembers holding Brooke in her arms as the blood gushed out of her and her breathing got faint and her eyes slid shut and didn’t open again. 

No one knows what the latest shot from the lab might do to her. Vanessa’s ears shut down at Silk’s long-ass explanation of the drug and its possible effects, and all she got out of it is the worry currently buzzing inside her. 

She’s taking a break from the crime-fighting and part of her is relieved. She honestly doesn’t care if the world goes to shit when the world did this to Brooke. Let the burden of protecting it make someone else’s shoulders tense. She spends every second next to her bed, chatting about everything and nothing for Brooke’s deaf ears, her own form of whistling in the dark, so Brooke doesn’t wake up alone. A’Keria stole Silk’s prized comfy chair for her to sit in, both of them acting appropriately puzzled and innocent when Silk chucked a soda bottle across her office in anger and led a witch hunt, complete with pitchfork, for the thief. 

She’s dozing in the chair, which is truly worth anything Silk could do with that plastic pitchfork, forcing her eyes back open because every time they close she sees Brooke bleeding in her arms, only this time Vanessa didn’t get her to base fast enough. She ignores her heavy limbs and tells herself she’s fine, that she’s used to little (or no) sleep, and this way she’s guaranteed to be awake for Brooke. 

“Vanessa?” A’Keria patters across the floor. “Silk wants to talk to you. It’s important.”

“But Brooke-”

“It’ll only be a few minutes.” A’Keria is apologetic, and Vanessa understands there’s not a question involved. 

She huffs and puffs her way to Silk’s office like a middle-aged white lady whose coupon was expired. 

“This better be good.” She crosses her arms and digs her heels into the ground. 

“Vanjie, we can’t find anything on Brooke.” There’s a tone to Silk’s voice that Vanessa doesn’t like. 

“What are you trying to say?”

“It’s just a little...suspicious.” Silk ticks points off on her fingers, and Vanessa knows she’s been sitting on this a while. “She wakes up in the lab with no memory. She said the lab ‘helped’ people like her, but where are they? She never mentioned anyone else, and there’s only a few costumed villains in this city. We can’t find _anything_ about this lab, and don’t you think it’s weird they’re not looking for her? We found one recent report of a plane that crashed in an ice storm, but she’s not on the flight manifest. Facial recognition got nothing. Not to mention all we have to go on is a first name--”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t get her social security number when she was bleeding to death in front of me!” 

“Vanessa,” Silk tries. “I’m just saying, how do we know she was on the plane? What if that’s another lie the lab fed her and told her to use when someone questioned her? How do we know everything she told us wasn’t just lies they made her believe?”

Vanessa’s stomach churns. She doesn’t like what Silk is implying, but she has to admit it could be possible. 

“Are you saying we can’t trust her?”

“All I’m saying is I haven’t made it this long in the game by believing everything I hear.”

She thinks of Brooke sleeping in her arms, gulping hot chocolate like a little kid, smiling like she was afraid to. The way Brooke’s eyes fought through their shadows of pain and lit up like the sun when she remembered her name. That Brooke would never lie to her. But if she didn’t know she was lying...

Vanessa distracts herself with the plane diagram on Silk’s computer screen. 

“How many people were on the plane?”

“Sixty, all with some ballet company.”

“How many does it hold?”

“Sixty-one.”

“But you don’t think _that’s_ suspicious?” Vanessa demands. “One empty seat. What if it was Brooke’s? She said they took her from the crash. What if they deleted her records? The whole plane went down, and with the record gone, no one would know she was there! That empty seat was Brooke, it has to be.”

“The plane crashed last March,” A’Keria cuts in. “Frost appeared eight months ago, at the end of November. They could have kept her there, training her, making sure their drugs worked, before they set her out. It fits with the time frame,” she concludes and Vanessa could kiss her. 

She can tell they’ve swayed Silk, or at least given her some doubts, which is sometimes the best you can hope for. 

“Keep looking. Please, Silk, I...I love her.” It’s the first time she’s told anyone else, and any doubt she might have had is gone as the words leave her. She loves Brooke, and she doesn’t care who knows it. 

Vanessa speeds back to Brooke’s room, trying not to be disappointed when she’s still asleep. She’d had some overly hopeful fantasy that Brooke would be wide awake and ready for another kiss when she got back. 

She drops a careful kiss on Brooke’s forehead. “Please wake up, Brooke,” she whispers. She nestles into the chair, praying she won’t fall asleep, but she does.  
\---

Vanessa shoots awake in the semi-darkness, wall clock reading 6:17. She’s unsure if it’s morning or night until a shaft of morning sun breaks through the window and punches her in the face. She gets up to close the curtains when Brooke’s finger twitches. 

Brooke’s eyelids are fluttering, breath quickening, and Vanessa’s heart leaps when those green eyes meet hers for the first time in four days.

“Where...” Brooke rasps. Her eyes flit around in fear, and Vanessa understands at once. Waking up in a strange bed with no memory of how she got there...

She repositions herself so Brooke can see her. “You’re not at the lab, I promise. I’m right here. You’re safe.”

Brooke looks wearily at her, fingers fumbling at the IV. “No, you wanna leave that in, okay?” Vanessa takes her hand before she does any damage to herself. “That’s helping you, I don’t know doctor shit, but it’s okay.” 

“V-Vanessa?” she asks, voice sounding like she’s had a cocktail of gravel and broken glass, breathing still ragged. 

“It’s me. I’m here. You’re safe. No one’s gonna hurt you.” She gives Brooke’s hand a light squeeze and grabs a water bottle from the nightstand. “You want some?”

Brooke nods and Vanessa holds it to her mouth while she sips slowly, breaths calming. 

“Do you remember what happened?” She knows she has to call a doctor, but it’s been four lonely days and Vanessa just needs to hear Brooke’s voice, needs to see that she’s okay. 

“I...my name. My name is Brooke.”

“That’s right,” Vanessa lays encouragement over her desperation. “Anything else?”

Her eyebrows knit together in concentration, but she seems dazed, and there’s a glassy, far-off look in her eyes making Vanessa’s chest tight with worry. She’s about to press the call button when Brooke’s shoulders heave.

“I remember he hurt me and I…I...”

“Oh, Brooke,” she soothes. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Vanessa blinks back tears, her heart sinking. She doesn’t know how she was naive enough to think Brooke would wake up with a perfect memory and her trauma wiped clean. Brooke will need help to get through what the lab did to her, she knows that. 

“Vanessa, I don’t feel good,” Brooke says quietly, lowering her head. 

“I’m gonna get someone to check on you, alright? I should’ve called sooner, I’m sorry. Does anything hurt?”

She shakes her head. “It’s too hot.”

Vanessa has Silk and a doctor in the room in seconds. Brooke flinches away and curls in on herself when she sees the doctor, breath catching in her throat and soft whimpers falling from her lips as she trembles.

“It’s okay, she won’t hurt you. I’ll be right here with you the whole time. I got you, I promise.” Vanessa squeezes her hand tighter and Brooke grips back like Vanessa is her lifeline.

“I trust you,” Brooke replies, an echo of days and several lifetimes ago, and Vanessa’s heart lightens. 

“Heart rate’s a little elevated,” Dr. O’Hara explains the monitors for Vanessa’s benefit as she pulls a thermometer from under Brooke’s tongue. 

“99.7,” she announces, shooting a glance at Silk that Vanessa can’t read. 

“That’s not too high, right?” Vanessa asks hopefully.

Then Silk informs her that Brooke’s normal temperature is 95.6, and Vanessa allows herself to panic.  
\---

“There’s no infection. Doctor thinks it’s a residual effect of the drug. It’s like it needs to burn through her system before it’s gone. Her bloodwork is different from the first sample we took, so this must be a new formula. Probably why she’s reacting to it like this,” Silk explains as Vanessa applies an ice pack to Brooke’s forehead. 

She nodded off just after Silk left this morning and has been asleep since, drenched in sweat and mumbling unintelligibly as the number on the new monitor rises steadily, currently hovering around 102. 

“I think it should pass in a few days,” A’Keria muses. “When she talked to us, she said the drugs made her feel weird at first, which is why she was so out of it when she fought you. Then she would sleep, which she’s been doing. This is the rest of it. Since she went every week, I’m figuring this’ll wear off by Sunday.”

“She’ll get through it. She can take higher temperatures because of her powers like you can, Vanj,” Silk pats her shoulder in a rare display of comfort. 

It’s nice to think this could all be over soon, but that still means days of sitting here uselessly, watching Brooke thrash around and sweat and futilely putting ice packs on her. 

Shooting fire out of her hands has never seemed so stupid. 

She is powerless.  
\---

A’Keria was right. The fever starts to break Saturday afternoon, hours after it hit 105 and A’Keria had to drag Vanessa away from Brooke’s bed while the doctors put ice on her.

By that night she’s back at safe levels, and it’s another waiting game. Vanessa wears out the tile floor wondering how much Brooke remembers and is still up when Brooke coughs awake, instantly holding water to her lips and gripping her shoulder comfortingly. 

“Vanessa, I remember something else,” Brooke says once she’s able to talk. 

“What is it?”

“I love you.” 

Vanessa leans down as Brooke stretches up and their lips meet after what feels like years. Brooke’s lips are cool and yet Vanessa melts at their touch. She shivers with delight as Brooke’s hand roams down her spine. Brooke is here, she’s alive, and whatever happens, they’re together. She perches on the edge of the mattress and lays her hand on Brooke’s chest, feels her heart race with excitement beneath her touch.

They’re interrupted a few minutes later when Brooke’s heart monitor goes off.  
\---

Brooke is released Tuesday night, and Vanessa takes her to the safe house Silk set up for them. A’Keria even went to their apartments and stocked the cozy space with their own stuff, and Vanessa collapses onto her familiar brown couch with a sigh. 

Brooke stands in the doorway, picking at her nails. 

“Hey, you wanna sit down? Or we could go to bed if you’re tired,” she offers. Brooke is like a skittish animal, eyes darting around nervously, and Vanessa keeps her voice low and even.

“Um, bed is okay. Can I get changed?”

“Of course you can. A’Keria brought your clothes, they’re in the second room down the hall.”

Vanessa changes into her own pajamas and raids the kitchen, drooling at A’Keria’s chip selection. 

Brooke comes back in gray pajama shorts and a white T-shirt, and again Vanessa marvels at how much smaller and more vulnerable she looks when she’s not in her suit.

“Anything you want to eat?” Vanessa asks as she rips open a bag of chips. 

Brooke shakes her head.

“How about toast? You really should eat something,” Vanessa insists lightly. Brooke has lost weight, not just over the past week but in the months since they first met, and Vanessa can feel Brooke’s ribs whenever she rubs her back. 

“C-Can I have hot chocolate too?”

“You can have all the hot chocolate you want.”

Brooke eats her toast while Vanessa crunches on chips. They’re in her bed that A’Keria had moved in (she conveniently only had time to bring one bed, not that either of them has complained) and it’s so much like that night Vanessa is half-expecting the lab to burst in and take Brooke away from her again. She forces the thought away. They’re safe now. The silence is comfortable, and peaceful, and Vanessa lets out a breath she’s been holding for well over a week, feels the tension slowly dissolve from her limbs. On Friday they’re meeting with Silk to indulge her love of “debriefing”, but they had the next two days to themselves, and Vanessa could be content with this for two days, maybe even for her whole life. 

“You doing okay, Brooke? Anything you need?”

“No, I’m good. Um, Vanessa?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry, but are we…what are we? Like, you know...”

Vanessa’s been asking herself that same question, and she honestly doesn’t know the answer. She’s still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she is in bed with a woman she would’ve happily punched in the face a month ago.

“I know what you mean. We can be whatever we want to be. If you want to go slow, get to know each other better, we can do that. If you want to go fast, we can do that too. I love you, Brooke, and I’m comfortable doing this either way.”

“I love you too,” Brooke breathes. “I think...I think I want to go slow.”

“Then we’ll go slow. Take it a day at a time. We don’t need all the answers right now. We’ll do what feels right, okay?”

Brooke nods, stifling a yawn.

“Get some sleep, Brooke. We can talk more tomorrow.”

Brooke nods again, burying her head in the pillow. She’s asleep in minutes, and Vanessa puts her chip bowl on the bedside table (you never knew when a midnight craving would hit) and quickly follows suit. It’s been a long day. 

She feels like she’s barely closed her eyes when a shout lurches her awake. Brooke is thrashing around beside her, asking someone to please stop hurting her, and Vanessa places a cautious hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s okay. You’re not there. It’s just a dream.” she repeats softly until Brooke bolts up in the bed, panting, shirt damp with sweat, cheeks wet with tears. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“No, Brooke, don’t apologize. It’s okay.” She holds Brooke to her chest, puts the blonde’s head on her shoulder until her breathing becomes steady again. She falls back to sleep with her arms wrapped securely around Brooke, ready to fight her nightmares away.  
\---

They live the next two days like royalty, laying in bed and eating chips, taking breaks for soft, salty-lipped kisses. It’s not until she’s in bed with Brooke, their legs tangled together, Brooke laughing at something she said, that Vanessa realizes she wasn’t entirely happy before. She wasn’t miserable, exactly, but she knows she hasn’t cared for another person, or for herself, really, since before the fire. 

Now that the drug is out of her system, Brooke’s head is a little clearer, and between her glimpses of memory and Vanessa filling in the blanks, she is able to reconstruct the night before the lab’s ambush. 

Vanessa remembers every second of that night, the image of Brooke beside her and the softness of Brooke’s hair as she ran her fingers through it permanently engraved in her brain. She knows Brooke is still a little fuzzy on some of the details, but she also knows that Brooke still loves her, and she lets it be enough for now. 

The debriefing goes on far too long, in Vanessa’s opinion, and Silk has a mile-long list with Brooke’s answers to her questions, which probably aren’t as helpful as she hoped. 

Brooke was allowed on one floor of the building. She only interacted with the doctor and the General. She doesn’t know anyone’s real names. She never saw other people there. She knows there was snow on the ground when her plane crashed and that the leaves had changed colors when she started doing her missions. 

The legal issues are taken care of. Under the Superhero Protection Act, Brooke was within her rights to defend herself against the General and the doctor, even though Brooke, who has her knees up to her chest the whole time, goes rigid in her chair and keeps muttering _I’m bad_ as they explain this. She didn’t sleep at all last night, and Vanessa hopes seeing Dr. West on Monday can help her.

Dr. West--Nina--used to be a superhero herself, West Wind, back in the day, but retired to practice psychiatry and spend time with her wife. She’s dealt with cases similar to Brooke’s and A’Keria had recommended her, knowing she’d be gentle enough for Brooke. 

Vanessa runs her thumb over Brooke’s hand. Things are going to get better for them. She knows it.  
\---

Vanessa wakes up to an empty bed and the scent of vanilla wafting through the apartment, which means Brooke had a nightmare. She’s taken up baking when she can’t get back to sleep after. She says it helps calm her, and gives her instructions to follow, which she likes. She’s gotten better the past few weeks, and Vanessa smiles as she remembers the disastrous first attempt when the smoke alarm woke her at 3am and she had to defrost their stove after Brooke panicked and shot ice at it so it didn’t catch on fire. 

There’s vanilla cupcakes on cooling racks, and even though Brooke has deep purple bags under her eyes and her cuticles are chewed up, Vanessa waits to mention it. 

“Cupcakes, huh? She fancy. You stepping up in the baking world, boo.” 

Brooke’s smile doesn’t meet her eyes. 

“Did you have another nightmare?” 

Brooke’s face falls. “Yeah. I’ve been out here since 4,” she admits. 

Guilt washes over her as she realizes that she slept through it, that Brooke had to deal with it alone, but that could mean the nightmare wasn’t intense enough to wake her, which is hopeful. 

“You know you can wake me when it happens. You don’t have to suffer alone,” she puts on her concerned voice, making sure to never yell at Brooke or make her feel bad for this. 

“I bother you almost every night. I wanted to let you sleep.”

Vanessa goes quiet. She knows Brooke has been working on this with Nina. Trying to understand that she’s not a burden and she’s not a bad person for asking for help. She also knows that, even though Brooke is doing a lot better with the therapy, the lab’s cuts run far too deep to be healed so quickly. 

“Well, let’s try one of these cupcakes,” she puts on a smile and stuffs one into her mouth.  
\---

“Vanessa?”

“Yeah?”

“So, Nina said it might be good for me, but I wanted to ask you, um...”

“What is it, baby?”

“Do you think maybe we could get a kitty?” 

“Of course we can. I’ve always wanted a cat, actually. We can go to the shelter tomorrow if you want.”  
\---

A colorful ball of fluff masquerading as a cat paws at the front of his cage when Brooke walks by. The shelter worker lets him out, and he immediately latches onto Brooke’s leg. She sits on the floor and reaches out a hand, then hesitates, teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she looks at Vanessa questioningly.

“Oh, you can pet him,” the worker thankfully supplies before Vanessa has to explain that Brooke is still used to asking permission for everything she does. 

She strokes his fur tentatively, smiling as the cat begins to purr. 

“I think he likes you,” the worker says. “His name’s Henry. He was brought in with another cat, and they’re kinda friends now. This here is Apollo,” he explains, opening another cage for a gray cat to strut out. This one also nuzzles against Brooke, who pets a cat with each hand and grins in a way Vanessa has never seen. 

“They like me,” she whispers incredulously. 

Vanessa smiles at the worker. “We’ll take them both.”  
\---

The next month passes by both slowly and quickly. The days seem long and indistinguishable when living them, but when Vanessa looks back at the end of the month, she sees how much things have changed, how different every day has been leading up to now. 

Brooke is understandably wary of taking medication, and Nina says they can ease into the idea later if needed, but even just being away from the lab, going to therapy, and taking care of herself is working wonders. She makes it through the night once, then twice. She eats more. She talks beyond just answering questions. The skin around her nails begins to heal.

She still has her bad days. Still has nightmares, still says _I’m sorry_ more than one person should, still calls herself bad for things she’s done. But when they finally have a Sunday where Brooke doesn’t jump out of bed and scramble to go to her appointment, Vanessa cries tears of joy in the bathroom. 

And Brooke is making _her_ better too. She goes to her own session with Nina. She starts to think about her mom more, and even talks about her. She digs the memories up from where she’s buried them and lets them see the sun. Nina mentions that helping at the animal shelter might aid Brooke’s progress, and Vanessa goes with her because she’s not quite ready to do something like that alone yet. She institutes Sunday brunch, which her mom did when she was a kid, and she creates her own sort of family, Silk the grumpy uncle who yelled on holidays and A’Keria the cool aunt that always got you the good presents. 

They take things slow, like Brooke asked for. They talk for hours at night, Brooke listening intently to stories about Vanessa’s family, helping alleviate some of the ache. They cook dinner together, and Brooke massages her shoulders, and she eases Brooke into sleep with gentle neck kisses and holds her through the nightmares. Vanessa’s never taken a relationship this slow. Usually she ran through them like a blaze, the heat and passion consuming her while the flames grew, and if she happened to make a few girlfriends (or buildings) crumble from her heat, so be it. 

But Brooke is a cold winter snow, a slow and quiet chill fiercely penetrating through your heavy coat and bulky layers of clothing straight to your heart, taking your breath away if you weren’t used to it. 

Vanessa hasn’t felt this kind of joy, this pure bliss, in years, and she knows Brooke feels the same way. Which only makes it that much worse when Silk corners her with an idea one day. 

“Vanjie, I have a plan but we’re gonna need Brooke. Frost, really,” Silk begins.

“I have a bad feeling about this, but what is it?”

“Well, I think we need to destroy the lab. If you and Brooke went in together, we could get records, information, we can get those doctors in custody and make sure there’s no building to return to. So they don’t do to someone else what they did to Brooke.”

Vanessa runs a hand through her hair, mind already weighing the dangers of this. “What makes you think she would want to go back there? Do you really think she _should_ go back?”

“That’s up to her. We could really use her knowledge on this. Doctor says she’s okay physically, but I don’t want her health at risk, and if her or Nina don’t think she’s ready, we can wait. Just ask her.”

And Vanessa says she will, but the days go by and she still hasn’t. Brooke has been doing so well. The nightmares have been less violent, and she’s _happy_. They’re _both_ happy. Will bringing this up ruin it all? Steal her happiness, make her get bad again? How can she even ask Brooke to go back there?

Over two weeks later, when Silk brings it up again, Vanessa knows she has to ask. But that night Brooke has a nightmare so bad she shoves Vanessa off her and it takes her torturous seconds to realize she’s not the doctor, she’s not trying to hurt her. Brooke’s tears soak into her shirt, Vanessa’s heart rips in two, and she knows the question won’t make it past her lips.  
\---

She is able to keep the question secret, planting it down deep and ignoring it in favor of Brooke’s safety and contentment, but all it takes is one moment, at a godforsaken debriefing, for it to break through the dirt, demanding an answer. 

“So, Brooke, what do you think of the plan?”

“Silk,” Vanessa hisses, but it’s too late. 

“What plan?” 

Vanessa sighs as Silk ducks out of the line of fire. “Brooke, Silk wants to infiltrate the lab and destroy it. I was supposed to tell you, but I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Brooke sounds hurt and Vanessa never wants to hurt her.

“Brooke-”

“C-Can we talk about it later?” she asks, and Vanessa nods. 

“Okay. Um, Silk, I want to hear about this plan. Please.”

Silk never passes up an opportunity to lecture, and Vanessa gets herself comfy before she starts. Silk should really pass out snacks if she wants people to pay attention for this long.

Brooke’s face is blank and unreadable as Silk drones. She nods once it’s done, eyes downcast and bottom lip between her teeth. She lifts her head up when she’s ready, and Vanessa isn’t sure what she wants Brooke to say, but she’ll support her either way. 

“I want to do this. Let’s bring down the lab.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I just want to give a heads up that Chapter 9 might take a little longer than usual. There's a lot going on, and I want to get it right. Thank you for your support and patience!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Brooke begins to recover and Silk plans to destroy the lab  
> Now: LAB TAKEDOWN (dun dun dun)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a while, hope this chapter is worth the wait! I'm actually happy with this one, which is rare for me. Once again, a huge thank you to Kite, for your amazing support and feedback. Thank you all so much for your comments, it would be great if you could leave some for this chapter!  
> Also note that this chapter does have a panic attack and descriptions of abuse, so be cautious!  
> Find me on tumblr @buffywhovianpotterlock

Every morning, Brooke repeats her name to herself. 

It’s still strange, to feel _Brooke_ bounce around in her brain, or to look at herself in the mirror and recognize that this is _Brooke’s_ body, not just Frost’s, and that each scar and beauty mark and strand of hair belongs to her too. Sometimes the name rolls off Vanessa’s tongue and Brooke thinks there’s been a mistake; then she reminds herself that Brooke is _her_. She’s afraid if she doesn’t constantly think about it, she’ll forget and won’t know who she is again. _No, I didn’t forget. They took it from me. It wasn’t my fault._ This is what Nina says, and some days she believes it. Other days she can’t. 

She knows her name, but she doesn’t truly know who Brooke _is_. She doesn’t know what songs she blasted on the radio when she drove. She doesn’t know what book she read so many times the spine cracked and the edges of the pages softened. She doesn’t know what food she ate to feel better. She doesn’t know if she had brothers or sisters, or who her first kiss was, or even her last name. 

The flashes she does see haunt her. They haunt her in her sleep, when she wakes up screaming and crying, body still braced for punishment. They haunted her after Vanessa saved her, when she tossed like the sea and her body was on fire and she thinks Vanessa was there putting ice on her but she’s not positive. Unlike any decent, self-respecting ghost, they even haunt her in daylight, leaving her scrunched up on the floor wheezing, headache blooming behind her eyes. They’re pieces of random events or things she must have lived through but can’t remember experiencing, most from the lab and others seemingly from her life before, and sometimes she can’t even assign meaning to them. She wonders if seeing and not knowing is worse than seeing nothing at all. 

Sometimes when she thinks of all the things she doesn't know, her heart strains against her chest like an animal trying to escape its cage, her stomach knots, and she struggles for air, and it’s what she imagines drowning is like. But Nina told her to breathe in and out when that happens and think of things she does know.

She knows how Vanessa’s hands feel on her face.

She knows she loves hot chocolate. 

She knows she used to dance. 

She knows she likes the colors blue and black. 

She knows (frozen stove incident aside) how to bake. 

She knows that what happened to her was bad but that she can get through it. 

She knows she loves Vanessa. And that Vanessa loves her.  
\---

It takes some adjustment, her new life. It’s like being dropped in a new land, allowed to wander anywhere she wants, tempted by the lush world and the lightness of freedom, yet afraid to really explore, to get too familiar with the warm colors and cozy atmosphere, in case someone makes her leave the second she lets herself feel at home. 

She wakes up one Sunday with Vanessa pressed against her back, arm protectively wrapped around her waist. _It’s past 7_ , she realizes with a jolt. _I would have slept through my appointment._ Some part of her still itches to run to the lab, body tense in anticipation of the needle, but that part weakens as Vanessa’s breath tickles her neck. 

Sundays are different, but a good different. Silk and A’Keria come over and Vanessa piles the table with pancakes and eggs and bacon and fruit and cinnamon rolls until it’s ready to collapse, and it takes Brooke a while to get used to it--not just having people around, but eating too. She never ate on Sundays, getting to the lab by sunrise and sleeping off her medicine--no, it wasn’t medicine, they were drugging me, she keeps reminding herself--until sunset. She even manages more than a few bites and keeps them down now, her body adjusting to Vanessa cooking like she had an army to feed. 

Slowly, she makes a new routine for herself. She goes to Nina on Mondays, helps Vanessa with work at the base--becomes an official employee, on the payroll and everything-- throughout the week. On Tuesdays she and Vanessa help at the shelter where they got Henry and Apollo. Nina thought it might be good for her, to get her out of the house and maybe out of her head a little. She pets dogs, cats, and the occasional rabbit and whispers soothingly to them as they gobble treats out of her hand. She is amazed at how the animals nuzzle right up against her and let her pet them, and Vanessa says if they had a bigger apartment they would clear the bitch out. 

And Vanessa. Oh, Vanessa. Brooke can’t remember if she ever had a girlfriend, but she is positive deep down inside her that she’s never loved anyone the way she loves Vanessa. Vanessa holds her every night so she can sleep, and rubs her back when she wakes up screaming. Vanessa lets Brooke share in the memories of her family and stories about her life. Vanessa makes sure she eats and tells her every day what a good job she’s doing, is so kind and patient and funny and _loves_ her. 

The fact that someone like Vanessa could love her, that love even existed, never occurred to Brooke when she was at the lab. She would have gladly spent her life serving them, and that scares her the most, in some ways. That she was _happy_ working for them. That she would have turned down a life like this when that blue liquid was running through her veins. But she knows now that the happiness with the lab wasn’t real happiness. It could barely even be called a life. 

What she has now, that’s a life. That’s happiness. 

She doesn’t tell Vanessa, but her worst nightmares aren’t the lab flashbacks anymore. No, the most soul-crushing, tear-inducing nightmares are the ones where Vanessa is taken away from her.  
\---

“I think you’re still blaming yourself for what happened,” Nina says gently.

She’s across from Nina’s desk, tucked up in the chair that she likes because it’s comfy and wide enough for her to sit in with her legs criss-crossed. 

She can’t meet Nina’s eyes. She _should_ blame herself. Nina doesn’t understand. 

“Brooke, let’s pretend for a minute. Let’s say this--all this, with the lab--had happened to Vanessa. Would you think it was her fault? Would you blame her for it?” 

“Of course not!”

“Okay, of course not. So if you wouldn’t think it was Vanessa’s fault, if you wouldn’t blame her, why do you think it’s your fault? Why do you blame yourself?”

Nina looks at her so sincerely and kindly it makes the words clog in her throat. “I...that’s different.”

“How is it different, Brooke?”

“It just is!” The words erupt out of her and her chest twinges. “I’m sorry.”

Nina waves her off. “You know you don’t have to apologize with me. But I would like you to tell me, if you can. Why would you blame yourself but not Vanessa? Take as long as you need.” 

Brooke shifts around in her seat, wiping her sweaty hands on her thighs. She runs a finger over the scar where she was shot. The skin surrounding it is still a little sore and it helps ground her. “Because Vanessa’s a good person and I’m not.” 

“What makes you think you’re not a good person?” Nina asks patiently. 

She avoids eyes she knows are looking at her with concern. “Because...because I should have known the lab was bad, but I believed them. I let them do whatever they wanted to me, I didn’t even try to stop it. And then they gave me orders, and I _wanted_ to obey. Everything I did was my fault because I didn’t fight hard enough, because I’m bad. ”

“Brooke, you weren’t in control of yourself. You are not a bad person, alright? You didn’t _let_ them do anything to you. They _forced_ you to do those things, you didn’t have a choice. Those drugs...they were military-grade, given to you for over a year. The fact that you could resist them at all shows how strong you are. But this was not your fault. You wouldn’t think it was Vanessa’s fault, and it’s not yours either. It’s no one’s fault but theirs. You don’t have to forgive the lab. But you can forgive yourself.”

“What if...what if I don’t deserve to be forgiven?”

Nina takes a breath. “I think you deserve to be forgiven. Vanessa does. So do A’Keria and Silk.”

She doesn’t even notice she’s crying until Nina is next to the chair with a box of tissues. 

“I want you to try and be a little kinder to yourself. You are a good person. The bad things were them. But all the good things you’ve done, that’s you, Brooke. I know it’s hard, but I want you to try to forgive yourself.”

Brooke nods. She can try.  
\---

Vanessa waits until they’re lying in bed together to bring up Silk’s plan. “Brooke? Can we talk?”

“It’s okay. We don’t have to.” She wants to destroy the lab, she really does, but she’d also like to just go to bed and forget about the plan until tomorrow. She doesn’t want Vanessa to be mad at her, or have a fight (is this a fight?) with her either.

“No, we should. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you. You’ve been doing so well lately, and I thought bringing it up might not be a good idea. I wanted to protect you, but I shouldn’t have made that decision for you, or kept it from you. I’m sorry.”

 _This isn’t a fight then. Vanessa’s not mad._ Brooke’s shoulders relax. She’s not upset anymore. She wasn’t really upset to begin with; just a little confused. But she knows Vanessa wanted to protect her, and she loves Vanessa; she shouldn’t be upset. No, that’s not what Nina says. Nina says her feelings are valid and she is allowed to feel anything she wants. She even helped Brooke practice talking about her feelings in one of her sessions. 

“I-I forgive you. I understand why you did it. I would’ve done the same thing if I was you. And I appreciate you looking out for me. I just…” she sighs. _My feelings are valid. It’s okay to talk about them._ “It made me feel like you didn’t trust me. Or that I’m too fragile. I know it’s been rough, but I’m starting to get better. I don’t want you to waste all your time protecting me.”

“I understand why you feel that way. But you’re never a waste of time, Brooke. And you’re not fragile and I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I am still gonna worry about you and want to keep you safe because I love you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Vanessa takes a breath, runs a hand through her hair. “I know you’re working on it with Nina, but Brooke, you still kinda think you have to do everything anyone asks you to, and you don’t. I’ll be with you no matter what, but I don’t want to do this because you think you have to. I don’t want you to do this if you’re not ready, and I really think you should talk it through with Nina.” 

Brooke finds herself almost breathless at how much Vanessa cares, and it takes her a few seconds to find words again. “I want to do this. I really do. I don’t want them to hurt anyone else. But I...I am a little scared,” she confesses, “and I promise I’ll make sure Nina is okay with everything.”

“And you promise you’ll tell me if you’re not ready?”

“And I promise I’ll tell you if I’m not ready.”

Brooke turns to her side and kisses Vanessa’s cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.”

The words are soft and radiate love, and Brooke knows she’ll never forget them.  
\---

It’s another month of reviewing plans, being bombarded with questions from Silk, and extra appointments with Nina. 

_You’ve made a lot of progress, Brooke_ , Nina had said. _It can help trauma survivors to return to scenes of the trauma, when they have control over the situation. You’ve been a little anxious in our recent appointments, and if you really want to do this I would have to work extensively with you. I’ll support you either way, but please don’t feel like you have to if you’re not ready. You also have to promise me you’ll decline the offer if I don’t think you’re in the proper mental state for it._

She tells Nina she wants to do this, and Nina meets with her every day. Nina drives her and Vanessa past the lab while practicing Brooke’s breathing exercises and talking her through the plan. The first day doesn’t go well, Brooke launching the car door open and puking onto the grass as the gray building comes into view. The second and third days she has a panic attack, and she knows Vanessa is ready to call the mission off as she lays in the backseat gasping for air while Nina calms her. 

But it gets better. By the second week, she can look at the building without panicking, though she does shake and sweat. She breathes like Nina tells her, counting each breath, envisioning herself successfully and safely completing the mission. 

She feels surprisingly...okay. Like she could barge in the place and bring it down with her hands. They have extra office sessions to go over any other fears. After 6 weeks, Nina says she is stable enough to do it, as long as she is on Brooke’s ear comm with A’Keria and Silk in case of emergency. 

It feels like the mission will never come, but then it’s the night before and Brooke can’t sleep. 

She tosses and turns for hours, mind and heart racing like they’re in a marathon together. _What if they fail and it’s all her fault? What if people die because of her? What if something happens to Vanessa?_

She manages to fall asleep, only to tumble into a nightmare. The General has Vanessa on top of a bridge and he pushes her off, and Brooke is right there but she can’t move, she just watches as Vanessa falls and falls...she lurches upright in bed, sunlight slipping through the curtains. 

She burrows herself into the mattress, bringing her knees up to her chest, body a clenched fist. 

“Brooke?”

Brooke hears her name but it’s distorted, like Vanessa is speaking through a voice-disguiser.

She can’t get her response to come. Her mouth won’t work right. 

Vanessa senses her distress and traces soothing patterns on her back. The touch is healing, and Brooke never realized how starved she was until she had Vanessa’s touches to feed her soul. 

“Breathe a little slower, baby,” Vanessa coaches, and Brooke discovers that she’s hyperventilating. She takes a deep breath and holds it, counting on her fingers like Nina showed her. 

“You still want to do this?”

How can she explain to Vanessa that she still wants to go, but also literally feels like she’ll die if she gets out of this bed? Her stomach writhes. Forget butterflies, there’s birds in there. Probably vultures, because something’s definitely eating her insides. 

“We can call this off, Brooke. Everyone would understand if you’re not ready.”

Her response is eaten by the vultures residing in her intestines. 

Vanessa’s hand presses against her forehead. “I don’t know why I’m botherin’ with this. My hands are hot as hell and you’re a human ice cube, I can’t tell the difference.” She laughs and brushes a stray piece of hair off Brooke’s forehead instead. 

Brooke smiles and breathes a soft laugh. She loves how kind and patient Vanessa is with her, and she wouldn’t change their relationship for anything, but some part of her misses their midnight banter lit by fluorescent street lights. 

“Do you want me to call Nina?”

She manages a head shake. 

“You want toast and hot chocolate?”

She shakes her head again. The combination has become their go-to option when Brooke needs to eat and knows her stomach can’t handle a whole meal, but even that seems too ambitious today. 

“Vanessa, can I...can I hold you?”

“Sure you can.”

Brooke flips over to her other side, Vanessa’s back nestling up against her chest. She loves being in Vanessa’s arms, but it’s comfortable and natural this way too, Vanessa fitting perfectly inside her. She lowers an arm over her waist, hand running through her soft brown waves, fingertips massaging her scalp. 

“I feel like a damn cat, Brooke,” Vanessa sighs in content. “I see why them animals at the shelter like you so much.”

Brooke snorts with laughter, feels her chest loosen. 

She wants to do this. She can’t let them take someone else and hurt them like they hurt her. She knows deep down she’s doing it for herself too. For the scars littering her body that she can’t remember getting. For every night she wakes up with a scream. For the hope that she can overcome her trauma, that she can heal and be healthy again. 

Breathe in. Vanessa’s coconut shampoo. Her vanilla body wash. Warmth spreading through Brooke’s skin. 

Breathe out. Today will be fine. Vanessa will be with her. She is stronger than them. 

She is stronger than them.  
\---

“Brooke, we got something for you,” A’Keria brandishes a large box with _Frozen_ wrapping paper. 

“The paper was Vanjie,” Silk holds her hands up in innocence. 

“I can open it?”

“Of course.”

All three of them watch her shred paper with the smug grin of parents on Christmas morning as their child opens the present they swore they weren’t getting them. She carefully lifts the lid and glimpses royal blue fabric tucked inside. She unfurls it and sees it’s a new suit, bright-green F on the chest made of icicles, with a matching mask, belt, and boots in the box. 

“We didn’t change much, ‘cause Vanjie says you look damn fine in blue.” Silk dodges an elbow from Vanjie and plows on. “It’s flame and ice resistant. It’s not _quite_ bulletproof, but it’ll absorb most of the impact, ‘cause damn, you get shot a lot.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, tears welling up in her eyes. 

“Now, you don’t have to be Frost if you don’t want to-”

“I want to,” she cuts A’Keria off firmly. “I-I talked about this with Nina. Frost is the name they gave me but it doesn’t have to be anymore. I can reclaim it for myself. It’s mine now, not theirs, and I have the power, not them. And it’s a pretty cool name.”

“That it is, girl. I gotta admit, Silk and I couldn’t come up with anything that good.” 

She looks over at Vanjie, whose smile takes up her whole face. She offers her hand and Brooke takes it, fire and ice meeting together. 

“You sure you still want to do this?” Vanjie confirms.

She nods. 

“Then suit up.”  
\---

Vanjie drives them in a sleek black car from the base and--holy shit. Frost doesn’t know why the car even has a brake. If Vanjie ever wants to quit the superhero gig, she’d have a nice career as a getaway driver. 

“Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t eat today,” Frost mumbles once her legs are on blessedly solid ground. 

Vanjie swats at her playfully, then turns serious as the steel gray building rises before them. Late September sun glints off the metal, and it doesn’t seem real that she hasn’t set foot inside in almost 3 months. 

“I’m okay,” Frost reassures her. “We go in, we get the employees, call for backup to take them, we find the records, we torch the place.”

“Straight to hell,” Vanjie agrees. 

“The employees enter underground so it looks abandoned,” she explains. “But we can get in through the back.” 

Vanjie busts open the doors and they are met with white walls and floors. Sterile. Cold. Blinding. 

“No security?” Vanjie muses. 

“I guess not.” Frost runs a hand through her hair. There was always security. “Let’s just go. Maybe they’re on break or something.” She knows she hasn’t convinced Vanjie or herself, but she doesn’t even want to breathe the possibility that something about this is off. 

She starts to shiver. _It’s just cold. I’m okay._ She takes a deep breath. Her hand unconsciously reaches for Vanjie, whose warm fingers connect blindly like a magnet and curl around her hand.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Vanjie admits. “I feel like I’m in a horror movie. If some psycho with a chainsaw pops out Silk can do this mission her damn self.”

Frost wants to smile but her lips are made of stone. “F-First floor’s cleaning supplies. Employees are on the second floor. Everything I did was on the top floor,” she explains, motioning to the stairs. The doctor had taken her up those stairs every Sunday…

“Everything okay, Brooke?” Nina asks. 

Another breath. “I’m okay.” She knows she’s on paper-thin ice, dangers visibly swirling underneath, but it’s holding for now. 

Their footsteps rain down on the narrow white staircase. Vanjie’s hands glow with flames and Frost forms a long icicle as Vanjie kicks open the door to the main science area. 

They turn the corner, bodies bracing for a fight. Frost’s heart skips a beat...

“It’s deserted,” Vanjie mutters, voice reverberating off the high ceiling, flames dying out. “What the hell? I thought I was gonna get to kick ass today.” 

Frost walks over to the lab tables, releasing a breath, registering how painfully tight her shoulders are. She was never allowed on this floor, but she knows it’s where they made her medicine. Vanjie holds up a finger coated with dust. 

“Everything’s dusty. Like no one’s been here in months.”

“There’s no supplies or anything either,” Frost notes. “Shouldn’t there by science-y stuff?” 

Vanjie relays the information to Silk, who echoes their confusion. She tells them to get whatever records they can for now and deal with the rest later. 

“Everything okay, Brooke?” Nina checks in softly. 

“Yes.” 

They hit the top floor and the vultures pick at her stomach again. Her body convulses like ice was just dropped down her back. Vanjie’s grip on her hand tightens. 

“The exam room and the off-office are at the end of this floor. The records should be in the office,” she talks over her nerves. 

_“Be a good girl, stay very still for the doctor.”_

“Frost?” 

“I’m okay,” she rasps. They’ve come to a stop in the hallway and Frost is bent over, hands on her knees, without even knowing it. “Keep going.”

They reach the end of the hall and Frost can almost feel thin cracks forming in the ice. 

_“If you’ve been good, you’ll only need one shot today.”_

There’s a white door, and behind the door there’s cold white tile walls and no windows—

_—She sits on the table while the General stands in front of her._

_“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”_

_He grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks her head back, his gray eyes locking onto hers and making her feel small, smaller even than an ant and a million times more insignificant. She forces her ragged breathing to control itself._

_“What did we say about asking questions?”_

_“It’s bad.”_

_“And what did we say about names?”_

_“They aren’t important.”_

_“That’s right. And yet this is the second time you’ve asked me what your name is. The doctor’s getting you more medicine, but I think you need a reminder of how bad you’ve been.”_

_He takes her left hand and clamps a fist around her last 2 fingers. He tightens his grip, crushing them, and then he twists powerfully, and she hears the snap a split-second before the pain hits and she screams--_

“Brooke!” The name travels through her ears like sludge. 

“Brooke!” She opens her eyes but a white sheet covers her vision. She takes a deep breath, wracks her brain for the listing exercise Nina taught her. 

5 things she can see. _Well she can’t see shit right now. Which one comes next? Things she can feel?_

She takes another breath and identifies cold tile beneath her. The cold is all she can feel, chilling her veins and icing over her heart. _Is she dying?_ Breathe. She desperately opens her eyes and the sheet is gone. She’s on the floor in the hallway, Vanjie beside her looking worried, buzzing in her ear comm as Nina asks if everything’s alright. 

“Yes. I-I’m fine,” she musters her voice together. “I’m okay.”

She can tell Vanjie wants to argue, but she doesn’t. “You’re sure? We can leave if you want,” she offers quietly. 

Brooke nods, lets Frost’s icy shell surround her again, and gets up on wobbly legs. “I’m okay. Just-just a memory. We have to...have to keep going.” She knows if she leaves now she’ll never have the strength to come back. 

The office is also blanketed thickly with dust. _The computer’s missing_ , she observes with confusion. Vanjie digs through the file cabinet and Frost stands in the doorway numbly. She feels like she’s not here, like she’s watching the scene from above. 

She’s okay, she’s here. She sees Vanjie, her tongue out in concentration. She sees the cabinet, the desk, the chair, the garbage can. 

“Got the employee info.” Vanjie triumphantly holds up a manila folder, then continues to rifle through files. “Hey, you think that drug formula you stole might be here? The one that helps with memory?”

“They-they said they would destroy it,” she stammers. “I should’ve realized...they said it was dangerous, that it would make me sick. Dangerous because if I ever got something like it, I would remember. It could’ve helped me and I gave it right to them, I’m so stupid...”

“That wasn’t your fault, okay? I’m gonna check anyway. The rest of this is labeled subject records. Do you think that means…” she trails off as she pulls one out. 

Frost glances toward the open drawer and sees rows of records that must go back years, possibly even decades, given the other three cabinets. 

“They’re all like you,” she whispers. “Listen to this. ‘Subject taken from trainwreck. No next of kin, no living relatives’. ‘Subject removed from remains of earthquake. No next of kin, no living relatives’. They took all these people that survived accidents. People with no family, no one to look for them. Where so many people died it was easy to take someone, and they’d be just another missing person.”

Her heart picks up speed. That means _she_ has no living relatives, that she was just another accident victim for no one to miss. “So my parents are…”

“I’m so sorry.”

Frost is unfeeling, a body left out in the cold too long. She says nothing. There’s really nothing to say, no way to describe the feeling of knowing your parents are dead while being unable to remember a single thing about them. 

“These people...they’re all dead. Listen. ‘Subject died after reaction to new dosage.’ ‘Subject killed in training.’ ‘Subject terminated after medicine failure and memory recovery.’ That one is listed a lot. So they…”

“They killed them,” Frost finishes. “The ones where the drugs didn’t work, where they remembered too much. They killed them.” Sweat beads on her forehead but she’s so _cold_. All the times they’d altered her medicine...how long before they would have given up and just killed her? 

“Frost,” Vanjie says quietly.

“Yes?”

“This one’s yours.”

It’s so quiet Frost can hear her own heartbeat. Vanjie holds it out to her as if it’s a bomb. Frost wills her body forward, watches her fingers close around the folder but still can’t quite _feel_ the weight of it in her hand.

“Yours is the only one in the last 2 years. That’s why you never saw anyone else here. All the others were dead.”

It’s a plain manila folder stuffed with paper, _Frost_ printed on the tab. Completely harmless, like only the most dangerous things are.

She flips it open with shaky fingers and fixes her blurry eyes on the first page, dated from last March. 

Codename: Frost  
Hytes, Brooke Lynn  
D.O.B: 3/10/1986  
Height: 5’ 10”  
Eyes: Green  
Hair: Blonde 

Subject removed from wreckage of plane crash 3/27/2018. No next of kin, no living relatives. Subject has incomplete fracture of the left tibia. Subject has—

Her eyes glaze over. The ice shatters beneath her and she plunges into freezing water and there’s no way out. 

_The glare of a light shining into her eyes._

_The snake-like hiss of the blood pressure cuff._

_“You had very severe injuries. We fixed you up.”_

_Monitors beeping so loud it hurts her ears. Wires and tubes consuming her aching, bruised skin._

_Agony shooting through her chest when she breathes. A heavy brace weighing down her leg._

_“You’ll feel better once we give you some medicine.”_

_The pinch of a needle. Body writhing in pain, blue liquid burning her from the inside out._

_Dripping sweat, throwing up on the exam room floor._

_“Don’t disobey, or there will be punishment.”_

_A bruise around her eye. Blood dribbling from her lip._

_Fingers bound with medical tape. A needle and thread weaving through her skin._

_“You belong to us now.”_

“Please,” she chokes out. “Please let me go.”

“Brooke?” The voice carries all the way down into the deep, a hope of sunlight and warmth. 

“I’m getting you outta here.”

Her numb body vaguely senses an arm around her back, lifting her off rough carpet she wasn’t even aware she’d fallen on. If she could think properly she would laugh at how tiny Vanjie must look carrying someone as tall as her. Her head is ready to split, someone playing tug-of-war with her brain as her mind hazes with visions from the lab and is yanked back by the humming in her ear comm that she can’t decipher. 

Fresh air hits her lungs, sunlight heats her skin. Vanjie places her upright on the ground, arm supporting her waist. Frost digs her boots into the ground, grass softening beneath her, slowly starting to feel her body again.

“Did we…”

“We did it. You don’t have to go back there ever again.” Vanjie tosses the files on the ground and sets the timer on the bomb. 

Frost finally discerns the worried voices in her ear comm as Vanjie tells everyone they’re alright; they have the files and are about to bring the lab down. 

Vanjie launches the bomb at the building.

The burning passes in snapshots before her eyes, her mind still lagging and struggling to take it all in. 

Its base collapses. _No more medicine._

The walls crumble in on themselves. _No more punishment._

The entire building is a heap of stone and metal and glass, the miseries that occurred within those walls still part of her but beginning to heal. _I’m not theirs anymore._

Vanjie begins to launch her own fireballs at the mess, making sure the lab is completely gone off the face of the earth. 

The flames warm her. _It wasn’t my fault._

The fire reaches toward the sky as the building disintegrates. _I can forgive myself._

“Think you can calm some of the fire down?” Vanjie asks. 

Frost nods, glad for something to focus on, and launches ice blasts at the flames. She hasn’t used her powers in a while and it feels _good_. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the cool feeling in her fingers, the powerful arcs of ice. She aims carefully, making sure the flames don’t spread, reigning in some of the chaos. _They won’t hurt me again. They won’t hurt anyone._ All that remains is ash and rubble but her hands keep shooting, and she sees blood stain her fingers as they graze a sharp edge of ice but she can’t feel it, can’t stop even as her arms tremble and her knees hit the ground. 

Vanjie kneels beside her and grabs both her hands, melting the fresh ice crystals. 

“It’s alright,” Vanjie whispers. “You can rest now.” It’s not until she sees Vanjie’s tears spilling down over her black eye mask that Frost notices her cheeks are similarly damp. 

She buries her face in Vanjie’s neck and cries, cries harder than she ever has in her life, cries until there’s just nothing left. 

Vanjie holds her the whole time as she shakes with sobs, hand rubbing up and down her back, softly telling her that it’s okay, she’s safe now. 

She is okay.

She is safe.  
\---

“This should be quick, we just want to review what happened.”

“Say ‘debrief’ one more time, bitch,” Vanessa threatens tiredly. 

It’s been two hours since the mission, an hour since her post-mission appointment with Nina, and they’re all in Silk’s office, Brooke’s hands curled around a mug of hot chocolate as Vanessa munches on Cheetos, which she’d accepted begrudgingly when there were no chips. 

Brooke still can’t get warm, her knees knocking together as she shivers, and she smiles in gratitude as A’Keria wordlessly drapes a blanket over her shoulders. 

Silk begins once A’Keria sits, Vanessa taking the lead on most of the questions, until they have a complete narrative of the mission.

Then Silk interjects with her side. “So, according to the records, there were 50 employees. The doctor, the General, and those three guards are taken care of, which leaves 45. 43 of those employees have died since the summer. All poisoned. It can’t be a coincidence.” 

“So there’s two unaccounted for...” Brooke starts.

“And you think the missing two killed all the others?” Vanessa continues. “But why?”

“We don’t know,” Silk admits. “Our theory right now is that the lab ceased to function after the General’s demise, since he was the leader and Frost was their only current subject. The missing two employees must have had some reason to kill everyone, but we don’t know it yet. We think they might have taken the General’s computer too. We’ll find them. Don’t worry.”

Brooke nods and sips at her drink. She’s so calm after seeing the flames die out that Silk’s announcement can’t even break it. 

“I know you found Brooke’s records. Eventually we’ll have to go over some things, but don’t worry about that right now. You two take tomorrow off. You’ve earned it. And don’t forget we got those new recruits coming soon.”

“New recruits?”

“Yeah, Scarlet Siren and Third Eye. Maybe if you paid attention at the debriefings, Vanj,” Silk mutters. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Vanessa laughs. She walks over to Brooke. “Let’s get you home.”  
\---

They put their pajamas on and get in bed, the fact that it’s early afternoon be damned. They’re tangled up together, a mess of exhaustion and elation and fingers still lightly stained with fake orange cheese powder. Brooke has her head on Vanessas’s chest and her fingers stroke Vanessa’s hip while Vanessa plays with her hair. She’s finally stopped shivering, Vanessa like a space heater beside her.

“You feel okay, Brooke?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m tired, but I’m good. How about you?”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry I couldn’t find that formula for you. Maybe those missing employees will know something...”

“It’s okay,” Brooke interjects, not allowing herself to hope, because it feels like the universe has given her all the hope she can contain in the past few months and she won’t dare ask for more. 

“You’re right. Let’s just have today.” Vanessa moves a hand down to caress her cheek. 

Brooke hums in agreement, worries already driven from her mind by the softness of Vanessa’s hand. 

“You did such a good job, baby. Not gonna lie, I was almost gonna take you out of there after that first flashback. But I’m really proud of you.”

Brooke’s cheeks go warm. “Thank you for staying with me the whole time. I wouldn’t have made it by myself.”

“I ain’t ever leaving you, Brooke. We make a good team, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Brooke says, lifting herself up so her lips meet Vanessa’s. 

“We sure do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Planning to do a short epilogue to wrap this up, then we’ll move into the sequel!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Frost and Vanjie destroyed the lab and found Brooke's records  
> Now: They rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I can get sappy now since it’s the last chapter, so bear with me. When I first came up with this idea, I genuinely didn’t think anyone would want to read it. To have people comment and tell me they’ve enjoyed this fic really means so much to me. I've never written a real chaptered fic, or one this long, and it's been an amazing experience, even if I had no idea what I was doing for most of it. With that, I have to give one more enormous thank you to Kite. You've helped me with this since Chapter 3, and this fic would not be what it is without your help. Thank you for everything. Finally, thank you to everyone that has read and commented on this. Your support really kept me going. Thank you.

Vanessa never wanted to be a hero. 

She’d had a perfectly normal life. And sometimes she still ached for that life. 

But not as often. Not when her heart was so full with her new life. With Brooke. 

She never imagined she could have anything like this. Someone to wrap her arms around at night, someone she still _wanted_ her arms wrapped around in the morning. Someone to talk to, to laugh with. Someone to understand. Someone to bake her cookies and kiss her and _love_ her. 

Someone she could just be Vanessa with. 

Even though she had been Vanjie and on her own for so long that she’s still discovering who Vanessa is and how to be with another person. 

But Brooke is everything. She is soft and cool. She is sweet and loving and just the right amount of ice to tame the fire while still letting its flames burn bright and strong. 

Vanessa never wanted to be a hero. And now, she didn’t have to be. With Brooke, she didn’t always have to be Vanjie. 

She could just be Vanessa.  
\---

_The flames surround her._

_The heat makes her skin crackle, the smoke makes her vision water and blur at the edges. She can’t breathe, she can’t see, she needs to get her mother out, she needs to--_

_Distant screams blare in her ears. The blackness creeps in. The smoke chokes her, filling her limbs and turning them to stone._

_She sinks to her knees, trying to get one last breath in--_

_She blinks awake slowly, wondering if she’s dead. She shoves a warped chunk of metal off her. She looks down at her hands, trying to see if her body is still in one piece. Where is everyone? What the fuck happened? The ash clings to her, even stuck under her nails and in her nose, and tiny sparks begin popping off her fingertips--_

Vanessa rolls over and keeps her eyes shut tight, fearing she’ll see flames when she opens them, still feeling the heat sear her skin. No, she’s not burning. She forces her eyes open. Brooke is sleeping peacefully beside her, face serene, and Vanessa nestles in closer, lets Brooke’s cold skin calm her down, cool her sweaty body. No fire. No smoke. Just their bedroom. 

She hasn’t had a nightmare of the fire in almost a year, and she coughs softly, like the smoke is still poisoning her lungs. 

Silk always told her she’d survived that fire for a reason. _Yeah, because the chemicals in the explosion did something to my DNA_ , Vanessa would reply, not giving into Silk’s insistence that she was meant to live for some higher calling.

Vanessa could never understand what she had lived for. Sure, she used her powers to stop criminals and save people. But she hadn’t been able to save her family when it counted. Then Brooke lets out a content sigh in her sleep, and Vanessa thinks maybe Silk was right. 

The clock reads 3:07. Vanessa takes a breath. She wraps her arm around Brooke’s waist and softly kisses her neck, the icy skin soothing her back to sleep.  
\---

Brooke never wanted to be a villain. 

She’d had a perfectly normal life. A life that she’s still trying hard to remember. 

But sometimes she is so happy with her new life that she can be content without knowing the old one. 

She never imagined she could have anything like this. Someone to hold her while she slept, who was still with her in the morning. Someone to talk to, to make her laugh. Someone to understand. Someone to eat the cookies she makes at 3am and kiss her and _love_ her. 

Someone she could just be Brooke with. 

Even though she had been Frost and on her own so long that she’s still discovering who Brooke is and how to be with another person. 

But Vanessa is everything. She is fiery yet patient. She is kind and loving and just the right amount of fire to thaw the sharp edges of the ice while letting it stand strong and shiny. 

Brooke never wanted to be a villain. And now, she didn’t have to be. With Vanessa, she didn’t always have to be Frost. 

She could just be Brooke.  
\---

_She’s on a plane, with the window shade down so she can avoid the fact that she is hurtling through the air at almost 40,000 feet in a fucking metal container when she hears the ice hit the plane._

_It assaults the the metal like millions of tiny knives, and the pilot is saying something but she can’t hear. Her heart is outracing the plane itself. Thunder cracks and she thinks it splits the sky in two. Screams fill the plane, metal screeches, and then they’re racing downward but her vision is getting cloudy--_

_She’s back outside that lab where she stole the drug formula, hand stinging from the tiny cuts the glass vial made._

_The streetlight teeters after Vanjie’s overzealous fireball, and the girl is not just a girl, but someone she knows. A friend? She runs, not aware of what she’s doing until the streetlight smacks against her palms. The girl stares at her, eyes wide, and she’s just a girl again. Frost doesn’t know her. Did she ever know anyone that looked like her? She drops the light and massages her temples. She’s disobeying. She has to go. She has to-_

Brooke blinks and she’s in her bedroom, not the alley and definitely not the plane. There’s no streetlight, no ice storm, and her hand doesn’t hurt. She peeks at her phone. 4:33. Vanessa is still asleep, and Brooke matches her steady breathing, mops the sweat off her neck. 

She pulls out her notebook, following Nina’s advice to write down dreams she has. 

_The girl. Her friend? Something with a P?_ Brooke is positive she’s had this dream, almost remembered the name before. She rubs her eyes furiously, begging the name to come, even though Nina says she can’t force it. But she _needs_ to know, feels her body starving to know something, _anything_ , and Brooke lets her mind go blank in an effort to feed it. 

_Plastique_. It pops into her head like a firework in a pitch-black sky. That was her name. Did she work with Brooke? Old Brooke, from before the accident? She was young, though. Had she been an assistant or something? Brooke can’t imagine being important enough to require an assistant, but then again, she doesn’t really know Brooke. 

She’s afraid she might never know Brooke, because of the lab. 

They always said they had saved her, and she guesses they technically did by pulling her out of the wreck, barely breathing. But Vanessa shifts in her sleep, a small smile on her face, and Brooke knows who really saved her. 

She sighs and puts the notebook away. She kisses Vanessa’s cheek and wraps her arm around her, the fiery skin soothing her back to sleep.  
\---

Vanessa’s phone blares loud enough to wake the dead. She groans awake, feeling Brooke nearly jump out of her skin beside her. 

She peeks at the caller ID with a half-shut eye. “This pain in the ass,” she mutters. 

“What is so important you had to wake me up at the ass crack of dawn?” Vanessa grumbles as she puts the phone on speaker. 

“It might interest you to know that a house exploded yesterday-” Silk begins. 

“How is that interesting?” 

“If you’ll _let me finish_ , hoe-” and she can just imagine the death glare, “-the house was the last known location of those two missing lab employees.The whole place was destroyed, so we had to wait on dental records. They match. They worked on the drugs at the lab. Seems like they were experimenting with something here and caused the explosion.”

“They’re-they’re really gone?” Brooke asks. 

“They’re really gone. There’s no one left from that hellhole.”

Vanessa smiles as Silk’s voice rings through their room, ignoring the nagging feeling in her stomach that something about this doesn’t seem right. 

She’s probably just being paranoid. She’s not used to the universe being this kind, but maybe it is for once, and she won’t take this away from Brooke. 

She can be safe for once.  
—-

“So, now we…” Brooke trails off, uncertain. 

“We don’t have to worry about the lab anymore, Brooke. It’s over. You...you’re free now. You’re safe.” 

_Safe_. Another kindness from the universe that she’s not sure she deserves. Brooke tries to let it wash over her, but it can’t quite settle into her body. Maybe the idea of pure safety is just too big for her to comprehend when she’s never felt it before. 

“I talked to Silk, and you could start patrols with me. If you want to, I mean,” Vanessa continues. 

“I think I would like that. Like I-like I have a purpose. Something to focus on, you know?”

“Imagine the headlines, bitch.” Vanessa swipes her hand across the air, gesturing to an invisible marquee. “‘‘Robbers Melt Before Vanjie.’ ‘Bad Guys Frozen in Fear of Frost.’” She cackles. 

“Maybe don’t go into journalism,” Brooke smiles, pulling Vanessa against her chest. Vanessa envelopes her in a hug, and Brooke realizes she does know what safety means. Vanessa is safety, and the only time Brooke has ever felt truly safe is in her arms. 

“Journalism, my ass,” Vanessa peppers kisses along Brooke’s collarbone all the way up to her lips. “We got a city to save.”  
\---

 

POST-CREDITS SCENE

“They bought it. The dental match worked. What’s our next move?”

“Our next move is to find that ice bitch and make her pay. It’s because of her the General never gave us a chance. Every second was spent working on her instead of our ideas. Now we get to call the shots.”

“Her powers won’t stand a chance against ours. And I hear she’s got herself a little fire girlfriend. Gives us some leverage.”

“Good. Then we can kill both of them.”  
\---

 

FROST AND VANJIE WILL RETURN IN...  
OVERPOWERED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Let me know what you think! I'm hard at work on the sequel. August is a bit of a busy month for me, so I don’t know how long until it's ready, but keep an eye out for Overpowered, coming soon!


End file.
